What do you need?
What do you need to do?
We are confronted with expectations, requirements, demands, and conflict every day. Every one of us.
Even opportunities. For example, Annika got a letter today with exciting news, she "is eligible" for the Denver Pageant! What a shame she went to college instead. And we're going to toss out the Capitol One credit card offer she got today too.
What do you need?
I stood in front of a room filled with Army chaplains once, high-ranking ones, no less, and asked them that question (to ponder internally) and they were so dumbfounded they sat stone-faced and then responded as if I'd asked them to take off all their clothes and dance.
What do you need? Most of us are conditioned to ignore the question. My spouse was trained to follow the "JOY" principle: Jesus first, others second, and yourself last. Well, you can only imagine how much time and energy Jesus can take, and then, there's others. Their needs are a bottomless pit. So he didn't get around to considering himself more than, oh, about once every decade or so. He, like too many of you, still spends a lot of time saying , "Uh, duh, I don't know," when asked the question.
What do you want? Even that is hard to answer. My favorite form of torturing my husband is to insist he decide where we're going for dinner. "What do you want?" It isn't easy to learn to listen to oneself, to listen hard and long and carefully enough to come to an answer.
Seriously, it is too easy to listen too hard to the external voices and implied expectations, requirements, demands, conflicts, and opportunities that show up in front of us every day. I'm sure you've heard the wisdom urging us to not let the urgent replace the essential.
So, what is essential?
I cancelled my therapy appointment today in order to stay home and watch the U.S. Open Men's Final between Nadal and Djokovic. And, in a funny twist, my therapist called me first to cancel and I know that, while she really may have needed to go home and give medicine to her pets, what she really needed and wanted to do was watch the match too.
Some things are essential. Even when they seem frivolous. Or outrageous. Or expensive, or stupid, or even mean. Yes, true. Sometimes work is not essential, even if it feels urgent.
What I will gain from this match today is essential affirmation of giving yourself heart and soul to what you really love. Affirmation of being "all in" and passionate, and, most of all, having belief in yourself.
It occurred to me the other day that I should have kept playing tennis longer. I wasn't bad. In fact, I was rather good. Surprise! Tennis was and still is such a head game, a game of confidence and will perhaps more than any other. I once beat myself in a match where I was up a set and four games, because I freaked out: "this girl is too good; I can't really beat her." And I didn't.
I could've used several more years working with a sports psychologist. Seriously. Belief in oneself. Confidence. Internalization of all those essential platitudes about being able to do what we set out to accomplish. "It's never too late..." I can't even think of them now.
If we focus on the urgent instead of the essential, we get caught up in pleasing others, following rules, doing the 'right' thing, and putting off what we really need. Need.
Joy is actually meant to be joy, not "JOY."
Watching tennis is one of the things that helps me get back in connection to the essentials. To be reminded that passion rules. Real passion.
There are times we can't afford, for any variety of reasons, to avoid the urgent. But, still, we need to find time, often, to step back and evaluate. What am I doing? What do I need? Where is the passion?
Another friend has been wrestling with these questions. In fact, several friends and acquaintances are struggling with these questions right now, starting with giving themselves permission to even ask. But they are leaning in close, leaning in close to listen to their heart, their instincts, their true voice, and making choices that feed their passion, not the merely urgent. Breathtaking choices. And life-giving ones.
Now, having made some essential decisions over the past several years and having had some made for me, due to illness, I am at a wonderful place where I can choose to give life to one of the passions I've had for years.
Did you know, there are 771 versions of white? Pick one.
Oxford white is the one we chose. Our family room is being transformed, finally, to indulge my schizophrenia (not actually) about loving the sea and loving mountains, at the same time. It is ironic, living in Colorado, that our home itself reflects the love Dave and I share for the Cape shores. There are lobster buoys leftover from treks along the beach, and even a lobster trap we got from a lobsterman who was about to burn it after its long and faithful career. It's not kitschy, just a definite turn in that direction. So "Nantucket white" is the order of the day. And we can pretend we're there as we sit among the rope and boats and buoys.
A small passion, not one of the bigger ones. But there's this song I like, "Vienna Waits for You," and every time I hear it, I hear my name.
What about you? What do you need?
Monday, September 13, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
"Easy Rider"
Sunday.
Sabbath.
No need to work my brain too hard. Just some musing after a trip up the mountain and back.
I'd love your reactions. Musing. Additions.
First of all, a hurricane named Igor. This has fumbling, bumbling, falling apart, ineffective, petering out written all over it. Marty Feldman, we love ya still! Igor seems to be spinning his wheels out in the middle of the Atlantic, far from land, out in the middle of nowhere. No big surprise there.
Did you know, "professional eater" is an actual occupation. A guy ate a few dozen burritos or chincillas or whatever and the article describing the event identified the winner as "a professional eater." Can I get a gig like that? (without the excess!)
Macy's big ad today promises "Whatever it is that dazzles, delights or excites your senses, this Fall you'll find it at Macy's." I'm looking forward to their mountain side of glistening gold aspen, a bottle of Viognier, and the thrill of riding my bike down the mountain at 45 mph. How they pull this off, I have no idea but it's convenient for us that a Macy's is just a mile away.
It should be no surprise I suppose that, if we can see the top of Mount Evans crystalline clear from Belleview, Hampton and Arapahoe Roads, we can also see these roads stretching out like ribbons, from the top of Mt. Evans.
Does anyone else have a dog that refuses to eat its food unless someone is sitting at the kitchen table?
Singing the Ode to Joy, the choral movement from Beethoven's 9th, after really learning the score, learning my part and having it nailed, as part of a really good choir has gone on my bucket list. What odd thing is on yours?
A new study from Turkey shows that men with a higher BMI last, oh, never mind.
Why did they stop making those Brach's Halloween candies that are pure sugar shapes of not just pumpkins or candy corn, and have more interesting flavors?
"We're available." That is, no kidding, Panasonic's new advertising phrase. "We're available?" Isn't that like a doctor drumming up business by promising, "I'm breathing." Or a bookstore that boasts, "we're open."
"We're available. That is as lame is Igor.
What's meandered along your neurons while out wandering around today?
Sabbath.
No need to work my brain too hard. Just some musing after a trip up the mountain and back.
I'd love your reactions. Musing. Additions.
First of all, a hurricane named Igor. This has fumbling, bumbling, falling apart, ineffective, petering out written all over it. Marty Feldman, we love ya still! Igor seems to be spinning his wheels out in the middle of the Atlantic, far from land, out in the middle of nowhere. No big surprise there.
Did you know, "professional eater" is an actual occupation. A guy ate a few dozen burritos or chincillas or whatever and the article describing the event identified the winner as "a professional eater." Can I get a gig like that? (without the excess!)
Macy's big ad today promises "Whatever it is that dazzles, delights or excites your senses, this Fall you'll find it at Macy's." I'm looking forward to their mountain side of glistening gold aspen, a bottle of Viognier, and the thrill of riding my bike down the mountain at 45 mph. How they pull this off, I have no idea but it's convenient for us that a Macy's is just a mile away.
It should be no surprise I suppose that, if we can see the top of Mount Evans crystalline clear from Belleview, Hampton and Arapahoe Roads, we can also see these roads stretching out like ribbons, from the top of Mt. Evans.
Does anyone else have a dog that refuses to eat its food unless someone is sitting at the kitchen table?
Singing the Ode to Joy, the choral movement from Beethoven's 9th, after really learning the score, learning my part and having it nailed, as part of a really good choir has gone on my bucket list. What odd thing is on yours?
A new study from Turkey shows that men with a higher BMI last, oh, never mind.
Why did they stop making those Brach's Halloween candies that are pure sugar shapes of not just pumpkins or candy corn, and have more interesting flavors?
"We're available." That is, no kidding, Panasonic's new advertising phrase. "We're available?" Isn't that like a doctor drumming up business by promising, "I'm breathing." Or a bookstore that boasts, "we're open."
"We're available. That is as lame is Igor.
What's meandered along your neurons while out wandering around today?
Sixteen candles / Smoke gets in your eyes
Let's get this out of the way right off.
I am disgusted with Poland. You may have noticed that I've not written about Poland much lately. Frankly, I haven't written about much at all lately. But that's another story.
Poland is irritating. Poland at the moment is extremely irritating. Poland, in fact, just pisses me off. If I lived there now, I'd consider taking a very long vacation to Tahiti. Or Antarctica. Or the moon. I'm that pissed off.
The Poles, every last one of them, yes, let's just generalize and paint everyone with the same broad brush, after all, we do a good job of that here from time to time. "All Muslims are...." "Islam is...."
But this has nothing to do with that. No, this is still about Poland. And how a disturbing minority -- not really every last one -- of Poles are being manipulated by maudlin and outdated emotional hysteria.
As you remember, a plane crashed last April near Smolensk, in Russia, killing the President of Poland, his wife, many senior members of the government of all parties, military leaders, and family members of victims of the Soviet massacre of 20,000 Polish elite in 1940. It was a horrible tragedy. The entire country grieved. The entire country was in shock, and mourning, no matter their political inclinations. A state funeral was held for the President and his wife and the media was saturated with tributes and other appropriate means of inviting public involvement in the mourning process.
Within hours of the plane crash, dozens of Poles began doing what Poles do best, bringing candles in tribute, in this case, to the Presidential Palace. And being Poles, the candles were rather naturally assembled in the shape of a cross. No problem. Thousands of thousands of candles were eventually left there in a tribute to the late President.
And left there. And left there. And left there. The new President was elected. He moved in. The candles didn't move out. Sane, rational, respectful people suggested perhaps it was time for the cross of candles to be retired. Or moved.
Outrage! For one thing, the whole mess got bolloxed up with sentiments about the cross, a religious thing about the cross. "You would take away the cross?!" Sacrilege.
But most of all, the twin brother of the deceased President has stirred the emotions of a rump minority of conservative Catholics who protest without ceasing any attempt to move the candles. And this same twin brother, an unsuccessful candidate for President in the election to succeed his brother and the Parliamentary leader of the main opposition party, PiS -- and yes, there are jokes about its name -- is pretty much out of control. Accusing everyone who does not daily bow down in obeisance to the late Lech of emotional cruelty.
I feel for the man. It had to have been the greatest shock a twin could ever sustain. He has years of grieving ahead of him. It won't be easy.
But sadly, he has used his own mourning to manipulate masses of simple folks who see in PiS all that is traditionally virtuous --- patriarchy, anti-contraception, anti-feminist, myopic self-absorption, anti-European, anti-semitism --- in their country. And won't let it go. So the politics of Poland are paralyzed.
Nothing new there. But really. Enough already. There are roads to build, businesses to license and support, health care to reform, tax structures that need attention. But nothing is happening. Poland is stuck. Again.
As an American, of course, it's impossible to be haughty about one's country's political life. We're a mess as well. And irritating.
So let's be clear: there is not one thing we can boast of, politically, in relation to our Polish friends. But I can still be irritated as all hell. With a big mess in my backyard, why go off looking for another one across the sea?
So, for the moment, however much I do love Poland and admire so much of its sassy resilience, I'm not thinking I want to be like Poland when I grow up. In fact, I think it's time for Poland to grow up.
I am disgusted with Poland. You may have noticed that I've not written about Poland much lately. Frankly, I haven't written about much at all lately. But that's another story.
Poland is irritating. Poland at the moment is extremely irritating. Poland, in fact, just pisses me off. If I lived there now, I'd consider taking a very long vacation to Tahiti. Or Antarctica. Or the moon. I'm that pissed off.
The Poles, every last one of them, yes, let's just generalize and paint everyone with the same broad brush, after all, we do a good job of that here from time to time. "All Muslims are...." "Islam is...."
But this has nothing to do with that. No, this is still about Poland. And how a disturbing minority -- not really every last one -- of Poles are being manipulated by maudlin and outdated emotional hysteria.
As you remember, a plane crashed last April near Smolensk, in Russia, killing the President of Poland, his wife, many senior members of the government of all parties, military leaders, and family members of victims of the Soviet massacre of 20,000 Polish elite in 1940. It was a horrible tragedy. The entire country grieved. The entire country was in shock, and mourning, no matter their political inclinations. A state funeral was held for the President and his wife and the media was saturated with tributes and other appropriate means of inviting public involvement in the mourning process.
Within hours of the plane crash, dozens of Poles began doing what Poles do best, bringing candles in tribute, in this case, to the Presidential Palace. And being Poles, the candles were rather naturally assembled in the shape of a cross. No problem. Thousands of thousands of candles were eventually left there in a tribute to the late President.
And left there. And left there. And left there. The new President was elected. He moved in. The candles didn't move out. Sane, rational, respectful people suggested perhaps it was time for the cross of candles to be retired. Or moved.
Outrage! For one thing, the whole mess got bolloxed up with sentiments about the cross, a religious thing about the cross. "You would take away the cross?!" Sacrilege.
But most of all, the twin brother of the deceased President has stirred the emotions of a rump minority of conservative Catholics who protest without ceasing any attempt to move the candles. And this same twin brother, an unsuccessful candidate for President in the election to succeed his brother and the Parliamentary leader of the main opposition party, PiS -- and yes, there are jokes about its name -- is pretty much out of control. Accusing everyone who does not daily bow down in obeisance to the late Lech of emotional cruelty.
I feel for the man. It had to have been the greatest shock a twin could ever sustain. He has years of grieving ahead of him. It won't be easy.
But sadly, he has used his own mourning to manipulate masses of simple folks who see in PiS all that is traditionally virtuous --- patriarchy, anti-contraception, anti-feminist, myopic self-absorption, anti-European, anti-semitism --- in their country. And won't let it go. So the politics of Poland are paralyzed.
Nothing new there. But really. Enough already. There are roads to build, businesses to license and support, health care to reform, tax structures that need attention. But nothing is happening. Poland is stuck. Again.
As an American, of course, it's impossible to be haughty about one's country's political life. We're a mess as well. And irritating.
So let's be clear: there is not one thing we can boast of, politically, in relation to our Polish friends. But I can still be irritated as all hell. With a big mess in my backyard, why go off looking for another one across the sea?
So, for the moment, however much I do love Poland and admire so much of its sassy resilience, I'm not thinking I want to be like Poland when I grow up. In fact, I think it's time for Poland to grow up.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
"I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now"
"...I mean, life has to be sloughed: has to be faced: to be rejected; then accepted on new terms with rapture. And so on, and so on; till you are 40, when the only problem is how to grasp it tighter and tighter to you, so quick it seems to slip, and so infinitely desirable it is."
___Virginia Woolf
So the writer told a new young friend. Obviously, she was well past 40 by that time and more and more desperate to hold on to a slippery life, tighter and tighter.
This is not going to be literary criticism. Or biography. At least not Virginia's. I simply want to borrow her images. And especially the one.
"...life has to be sloughed..."
It seems to have been a time for sloughing. Transition. Giving away. Giving over, letting go.
We let go, as if she was ever ours to hold on to, our youngest daughter, escorted her to the opening of the next chapter of her life. University.
How far away is New York City? It isn't to be measured in miles. Those are easily erased with text messages, skype, and even, gasp, telephone conversations. How far is New York City from here?
A life.
A new life.
One opens. For her. But also for us.
I wrote last in this space that I was feeling old. Too old. I don't think that was it. Not quite, not exactly.
I was sloughing. Letting go. Facing reality. It is now this time. It is now. Simply now. But the difference between before and now, and now and after, is disorienting. As it often is. Not often, always.
"Life has to be sloughed."
A time to hold on, a time to let go. A time to stay, a time to move, a time to be firm, a time to be loose, to relax, to be less. There is a time to hold on tighter and a time to give.
I disagree with Virginia. Or, rather, more exactly, honestly, my life is different than hers. She needed to hold on tighter and tighter as she grew older. Not necessarily to happy avail. I find the opposite is true for me. There is more to let loose, to set free, to watch fly off into the skies.
The mistake is to mistake the times for what they are, and are not. The mistake is to hold when it is time to hand over. To stay when it is time to go. To measure in terms of what has rather than what one has given.
So now we have given our two daughters more completely to their own selves. We have given them their futures to shape and shade, to claim. To lean into and discover. And for them, too, it is time to slough off old skin, old stuff.
One girl has found a home in a sweet, friendly neighborhood in an enormous city of some eight million. Her big sister is a woman on her own, having earned a degree and found a job in her field, found her own place to live and is now creating for herself a home. They will both be part of us forever. This will always be their home home. But not like before. We have faced a reality, found new options and opportunities, new places and energies and vocations, people, loves, likes, restaurants, tastes, tolerances.
We have rejected -- one must always not choose something to choose something -- and we have accepted on new terms with rapture.
Rapture!
This is a time for rapture.
(Not the rapture, in which case, I want your BMW.) But rapture. Joy. Illumination.
And young-ness. Having sloughed, faced, rejected, and felt very old in the process, I'm feeling young again with rapture. With all there is to accept. To do, to try, to learn, to work at and work out, to agonize over and push for.
Yep. Two weeks ago I was old. In fact, "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."
p.s. I'm serious about the car thing. In case of rapture, I'm taking your car.
___Virginia Woolf
So the writer told a new young friend. Obviously, she was well past 40 by that time and more and more desperate to hold on to a slippery life, tighter and tighter.
This is not going to be literary criticism. Or biography. At least not Virginia's. I simply want to borrow her images. And especially the one.
"...life has to be sloughed..."
It seems to have been a time for sloughing. Transition. Giving away. Giving over, letting go.
We let go, as if she was ever ours to hold on to, our youngest daughter, escorted her to the opening of the next chapter of her life. University.
How far away is New York City? It isn't to be measured in miles. Those are easily erased with text messages, skype, and even, gasp, telephone conversations. How far is New York City from here?
A life.
A new life.
One opens. For her. But also for us.
I wrote last in this space that I was feeling old. Too old. I don't think that was it. Not quite, not exactly.
I was sloughing. Letting go. Facing reality. It is now this time. It is now. Simply now. But the difference between before and now, and now and after, is disorienting. As it often is. Not often, always.
"Life has to be sloughed."
A time to hold on, a time to let go. A time to stay, a time to move, a time to be firm, a time to be loose, to relax, to be less. There is a time to hold on tighter and a time to give.
I disagree with Virginia. Or, rather, more exactly, honestly, my life is different than hers. She needed to hold on tighter and tighter as she grew older. Not necessarily to happy avail. I find the opposite is true for me. There is more to let loose, to set free, to watch fly off into the skies.
The mistake is to mistake the times for what they are, and are not. The mistake is to hold when it is time to hand over. To stay when it is time to go. To measure in terms of what has rather than what one has given.
So now we have given our two daughters more completely to their own selves. We have given them their futures to shape and shade, to claim. To lean into and discover. And for them, too, it is time to slough off old skin, old stuff.
One girl has found a home in a sweet, friendly neighborhood in an enormous city of some eight million. Her big sister is a woman on her own, having earned a degree and found a job in her field, found her own place to live and is now creating for herself a home. They will both be part of us forever. This will always be their home home. But not like before. We have faced a reality, found new options and opportunities, new places and energies and vocations, people, loves, likes, restaurants, tastes, tolerances.
We have rejected -- one must always not choose something to choose something -- and we have accepted on new terms with rapture.
Rapture!
This is a time for rapture.
(Not the rapture, in which case, I want your BMW.) But rapture. Joy. Illumination.
And young-ness. Having sloughed, faced, rejected, and felt very old in the process, I'm feeling young again with rapture. With all there is to accept. To do, to try, to learn, to work at and work out, to agonize over and push for.
Yep. Two weeks ago I was old. In fact, "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."
p.s. I'm serious about the car thing. In case of rapture, I'm taking your car.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
"I was so much younger then; I'm older than that now."
First of all, the bumper sticker of the day, forgive us please, but we laughed so hard at this one Annika fell off the back seat, Dave snorted, and I almost drove off the road.
"Proud father of the next door neighbor's honor student."
Okay. That has nothing to do with anything else. Just, it's good to laugh.
So what is your favorite bumper sticker?
This is the serious bit. I feel old. Old. Old. Old.
Like, done. Over. Out of gas. Too old to do much beyond put one foot in front of the other.
But it's not supposed to be like this. My closest mom-friend is sending her youngest child off to college this week too and she's feeling like "it's time for me," even as it is time for her daughter to move forward with her own life. She's excited, ready, eager to launch the next phase of her life.
I'm supposed to be her partner in this process, a kindred spirit, likewise ready to jump into this new era. Supposed to be. Want to be.
Four years ago when Kaia was graduating from high school and getting ready to go off to college, it felt like my world was opening up too.
A friend gave me a bookmark with George Eliot's wisdom, "It's never too late to be what you might have been." I filled my head with aphorisms like that one. "Vienna waits for you" became my favorite song, and I was all about the future.
Several years after getting hit in the head, I was finally coming back to life as the worst of the trauma effects abated and I was bored with all the diversions I'd created for the times required to recover. I was gung ho, ready to take back the world. A whirling dervish, fast and furious, full speed ahead.
Turns out I was also revved up on three times the FDA recommended maximum dosage of Paxil. And I was working out like a fiend. Boxing, lifting, walking, pumped up on endorphins on top of the Paxil and other meds. Let's just say I was a bit manic.
I wanted to seize more than the moment. I wanted to grab the brass ring and do, get, accomplish it all.
Concentration was still a problem. So it's hard to remember what all I wanted, but coming back and claiming life was definitely the goal.
I was only 51. That seemed young. A long future stretched ahead, so many possibilities, options, doors to open, roads not taken to go back and try. "Let me at it!"
I actually scared my therapist one afternoon. "I'm going to Poland!" She understood me to say, "tomorrow," which wasn't far from my ambition. "Dial it down," she suggested. "Let's think this through."
So we did, of course, and saner sense prevailed and I took some time to figure out more about what I wanted. But not enough.
Between the endorphins and the overdose of Paxil, I had enough oooomph to plow through a jungle.
Looking back now, at those manic moments, I'm embarrassed at my excess of enthusiasm, my failures of good judgment at times, and my quick conclusions.
But I'm also sort of jealous, wistful, longing, to have that high spirit back again. As I prepare to send another daughter off to college (in FOUR days!), I keep thinking it should be prompting another round of anticipation -- along with the loss.
I have a new and improved routine, with some new goals. So it's not like I'm lying around watching HGTV all day -- well, not until last week. There are some new accomplishments, new projects, wonderful new friends, and new ambitions. I've worked hard to develop some skills that will carry me forward. I'm still as goofy as before (who among you speaks seriously about the "flock of moose" up ahead on the road?) and I am still completely incapacitated from time to time by PTSD. I am not, as we say, normal. And Annika is proud to say that her mom is genuinely "certifiable," not just your run of the mill crazy. We laugh a lot.
It's time for Annika to move on. And it's time for me to be creative, too. But I'm kind of jaded, worn out, hoped out.
I'm going to hear Rite of Spring(Stravinsky)this afternoon. I hope the spirit moves, the energy of new life catches hold of me, and an even violent gust gives me a big push!
Are you still filled with energy about the future? What sparks your energy? What feeds your spirit?
"Proud father of the next door neighbor's honor student."
Okay. That has nothing to do with anything else. Just, it's good to laugh.
So what is your favorite bumper sticker?
This is the serious bit. I feel old. Old. Old. Old.
Like, done. Over. Out of gas. Too old to do much beyond put one foot in front of the other.
But it's not supposed to be like this. My closest mom-friend is sending her youngest child off to college this week too and she's feeling like "it's time for me," even as it is time for her daughter to move forward with her own life. She's excited, ready, eager to launch the next phase of her life.
I'm supposed to be her partner in this process, a kindred spirit, likewise ready to jump into this new era. Supposed to be. Want to be.
Four years ago when Kaia was graduating from high school and getting ready to go off to college, it felt like my world was opening up too.
A friend gave me a bookmark with George Eliot's wisdom, "It's never too late to be what you might have been." I filled my head with aphorisms like that one. "Vienna waits for you" became my favorite song, and I was all about the future.
Several years after getting hit in the head, I was finally coming back to life as the worst of the trauma effects abated and I was bored with all the diversions I'd created for the times required to recover. I was gung ho, ready to take back the world. A whirling dervish, fast and furious, full speed ahead.
Turns out I was also revved up on three times the FDA recommended maximum dosage of Paxil. And I was working out like a fiend. Boxing, lifting, walking, pumped up on endorphins on top of the Paxil and other meds. Let's just say I was a bit manic.
I wanted to seize more than the moment. I wanted to grab the brass ring and do, get, accomplish it all.
Concentration was still a problem. So it's hard to remember what all I wanted, but coming back and claiming life was definitely the goal.
I was only 51. That seemed young. A long future stretched ahead, so many possibilities, options, doors to open, roads not taken to go back and try. "Let me at it!"
I actually scared my therapist one afternoon. "I'm going to Poland!" She understood me to say, "tomorrow," which wasn't far from my ambition. "Dial it down," she suggested. "Let's think this through."
So we did, of course, and saner sense prevailed and I took some time to figure out more about what I wanted. But not enough.
Between the endorphins and the overdose of Paxil, I had enough oooomph to plow through a jungle.
Looking back now, at those manic moments, I'm embarrassed at my excess of enthusiasm, my failures of good judgment at times, and my quick conclusions.
But I'm also sort of jealous, wistful, longing, to have that high spirit back again. As I prepare to send another daughter off to college (in FOUR days!), I keep thinking it should be prompting another round of anticipation -- along with the loss.
I have a new and improved routine, with some new goals. So it's not like I'm lying around watching HGTV all day -- well, not until last week. There are some new accomplishments, new projects, wonderful new friends, and new ambitions. I've worked hard to develop some skills that will carry me forward. I'm still as goofy as before (who among you speaks seriously about the "flock of moose" up ahead on the road?) and I am still completely incapacitated from time to time by PTSD. I am not, as we say, normal. And Annika is proud to say that her mom is genuinely "certifiable," not just your run of the mill crazy. We laugh a lot.
It's time for Annika to move on. And it's time for me to be creative, too. But I'm kind of jaded, worn out, hoped out.
I'm going to hear Rite of Spring(Stravinsky)this afternoon. I hope the spirit moves, the energy of new life catches hold of me, and an even violent gust gives me a big push!
Are you still filled with energy about the future? What sparks your energy? What feeds your spirit?
Thursday, August 19, 2010
"They Say It's Your Birthday!"
Another voter for mom, apple pie and the American way.
Another voter for gay marriage in all 50 states.
Another voter against "all that immigration crap." (She's a lot more articulate than that, this is seven in the morning shorthand.)
Another voter for equal protection under the law.
Another voter for upholding the First Amendment.
And all of the rest of them, too, for that matter.
Another voter for building a mosque at Ground Zero.
Another voter for health care reform.
Another voter for kindness.
Another voter for compassion.
Another voter for justice.
For all.
That means all, all.
Annika's first official act as an 18-year-old: registering to vote.
There are, apparently, four newly legal things one can do when turning 18: buy cigarettes, buy porn, buy a lotto ticket, and vote. (I think get a tattoo without a parent's permission is also on the list.)
She got the tattoo last week, with the parent's permission. It says "Sol" or Sun in Swedish.
She really wanted "Sunrise" in Swedish but that is a really really long word in Swedish. Nonetheless, that may be the closest thing to a faith statement she can make at the moment, which, to my mind, is not a bad one, not at all. Faith in tomorrow, the new day, the promise, the hope, the newness of life. Day after day after day.
So, Annika can go out today and buy cigarettes, buy porn and lotto tickets, and vote. To her everlasting credit, she thinks porn is exploitive, is violently opposed to smoking, and thinks the lotto is stupid. BUT. But.
She's been waiting for this moment for years. She can vote.
And rest assured, she will be voting for you. For "Mother, apple pie, and the American way."
The American way.
Oh, she knows her Constitution. Probably better than you do. So you can count on her. I know I do.
Seems I used to say, "Look out world, Annika is coming!"
Now, just one week before she gets on the plane for NYU, and at the wise old age of 18, it is time to say,
"Watch out world, Annika is HERE!"
Lucky, lucky us!
Another voter for gay marriage in all 50 states.
Another voter against "all that immigration crap." (She's a lot more articulate than that, this is seven in the morning shorthand.)
Another voter for equal protection under the law.
Another voter for upholding the First Amendment.
And all of the rest of them, too, for that matter.
Another voter for building a mosque at Ground Zero.
Another voter for health care reform.
Another voter for kindness.
Another voter for compassion.
Another voter for justice.
For all.
That means all, all.
Annika's first official act as an 18-year-old: registering to vote.
There are, apparently, four newly legal things one can do when turning 18: buy cigarettes, buy porn, buy a lotto ticket, and vote. (I think get a tattoo without a parent's permission is also on the list.)
She got the tattoo last week, with the parent's permission. It says "Sol" or Sun in Swedish.
She really wanted "Sunrise" in Swedish but that is a really really long word in Swedish. Nonetheless, that may be the closest thing to a faith statement she can make at the moment, which, to my mind, is not a bad one, not at all. Faith in tomorrow, the new day, the promise, the hope, the newness of life. Day after day after day.
So, Annika can go out today and buy cigarettes, buy porn and lotto tickets, and vote. To her everlasting credit, she thinks porn is exploitive, is violently opposed to smoking, and thinks the lotto is stupid. BUT. But.
She's been waiting for this moment for years. She can vote.
And rest assured, she will be voting for you. For "Mother, apple pie, and the American way."
The American way.
Oh, she knows her Constitution. Probably better than you do. So you can count on her. I know I do.
Seems I used to say, "Look out world, Annika is coming!"
Now, just one week before she gets on the plane for NYU, and at the wise old age of 18, it is time to say,
"Watch out world, Annika is HERE!"
Lucky, lucky us!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
"Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights"
A big-time New York editor is fascinated by my story.
He's also said that the books he'll consider buying and taking on as a project, to edit and publish, are ones that must keep him on the subway and make him miss his stop. So I'm also thinking of Michael as I write, trying to find ways to weave the plot to keep him hooked, make him miss his stop.
One can aspire to less.
I'll bet that one of the things that makes him a good editor is that he is an excellent listener. He managed to weasel out of me more information more quickly than my first psychologist, post attack, ever knew.
At one point, describing my "thing" about Poland, I blurted out, "Poland saved me."
"No," he said, "you saved yourself."
That comment, and the entire conversation was a turning point in my healng journey. I felt powerful again in a way I'd lost for years. Confidence, chutzpah, and gratitude poured over me then, especially as my 'truth shivers' confirmed the truth of his words. Intuitively, I knew he was right.
We watched the movie "Julie and Julia" again tonight. And I'd forgotten that line, when Julie tells her husband, "Julia (Child) saved me," and her husband responds, "you saved yourself."
So, this is interesting. This same editor was at Little,Brown when Julie Powell's book was published there. Did he get the line from her, or did she get it from him?
Whichever, I'm glad he held on to it. And used it on me.
It's not arrogance to claim the portion of agency, of power, that one can rightly assert. Of course I didn't exactly save myself. Not without a lot of help. But let's not be too humble.
Let's acknowledge and be glad and grateful for what we ourselves are able to do, for ourselves, for our own good, for our own healing. Let's claim the resourcefulness and ingenuity and clever creativity that contribute to our growth, recovery, learning, development and healing. We're not victims. We're not passive receivers of our lives, we're the actors, the forces for good, for change.
"No," he said, "you saved yourself."
Mike, Julie, whomever came up with it first, thank you. Thank you for reminding me again that I am, we all are, the writers of our own stories, the weavers of our own plots.
Now, I sure hope, when the time comes to submit the manuscript, that I can keep Mike reading right on past his subway stop, reading about people who saved themselves.
He's also said that the books he'll consider buying and taking on as a project, to edit and publish, are ones that must keep him on the subway and make him miss his stop. So I'm also thinking of Michael as I write, trying to find ways to weave the plot to keep him hooked, make him miss his stop.
One can aspire to less.
I'll bet that one of the things that makes him a good editor is that he is an excellent listener. He managed to weasel out of me more information more quickly than my first psychologist, post attack, ever knew.
At one point, describing my "thing" about Poland, I blurted out, "Poland saved me."
"No," he said, "you saved yourself."
That comment, and the entire conversation was a turning point in my healng journey. I felt powerful again in a way I'd lost for years. Confidence, chutzpah, and gratitude poured over me then, especially as my 'truth shivers' confirmed the truth of his words. Intuitively, I knew he was right.
We watched the movie "Julie and Julia" again tonight. And I'd forgotten that line, when Julie tells her husband, "Julia (Child) saved me," and her husband responds, "you saved yourself."
So, this is interesting. This same editor was at Little,Brown when Julie Powell's book was published there. Did he get the line from her, or did she get it from him?
Whichever, I'm glad he held on to it. And used it on me.
It's not arrogance to claim the portion of agency, of power, that one can rightly assert. Of course I didn't exactly save myself. Not without a lot of help. But let's not be too humble.
Let's acknowledge and be glad and grateful for what we ourselves are able to do, for ourselves, for our own good, for our own healing. Let's claim the resourcefulness and ingenuity and clever creativity that contribute to our growth, recovery, learning, development and healing. We're not victims. We're not passive receivers of our lives, we're the actors, the forces for good, for change.
"No," he said, "you saved yourself."
Mike, Julie, whomever came up with it first, thank you. Thank you for reminding me again that I am, we all are, the writers of our own stories, the weavers of our own plots.
Now, I sure hope, when the time comes to submit the manuscript, that I can keep Mike reading right on past his subway stop, reading about people who saved themselves.
Monday, July 26, 2010
If you want it, then you better put a lid on it
It is so good to know I can still embarrass my kid.
She didn't find my riff amusing. I thought it was hilarious, clever, and instructional. If you're going to leave Qdoba with a fresh refill of Diet Coke, you'd better put a lid on it.
But who will laugh at my stupid humor in a month? She'll be gone.
One month from today Annika and I leave for college. That is, of course, to say, Annika and I will leave for New York City where she will enter New York University and I will help her move into her dorm on Washington Square and then get back on an airplane, alone, and come home.
One month. One more month. But -- lame, trite, momism alert: it was last week that she slept through her baptism and the party afterward, and six days ago that she and her pre-school pals Kristin and Meredith and Collette spent an hour simply staring at giraffes as they ate, at the Brookfield Zoo. And five days ago that she and Julia crossed the bridge by the dandelion fountain on the Naperville Riverwalk to become full-fledged Brownies, and later that same day she so convinced her first grade teacher that she was an adopted Indian Princess that I got a phone call that night, "is Annika adopted?"
And four days ago she was astonished by this contraption our neighbor, Linda, pulled out, and asked, "what's an iron?" A few hours later she and Kari played horses for hours in our backyard, soon after receiving a special gift from cousin Noah who gave her a huge wrapped package and whispered to her, "It's for you! It's a surprise! It's a horse!"
Three days ago she wore a cap and gown and graduated from grade school, then went off to spend every morning of middle school, before classes started walking the hallways with Emily. Later that afternoon she went off to Dublin and London and Edinburgh and the villages of Wales with her children's choir, came home and in the evening hosted her bestest friends for her first annual Bastille Day LBD dinner.
Two days ago she went to New York City for the first time, fell in love with it, and went back again before lunch, on her own for a week to visit and confirm her passion for the city and for NYU. It's not just one thing but everything, the people, the energy, the architecture, the walking, the subway, the diversity, the craziness, the concentration of intellectual and creative and world-class resources.
Yesterday she left no doubt about her leadership skills and commitments, even being singled out for her leadership role within her 2200 member student body at Arapaho by the principal at commencement, and made certain she would never have to take another math class with her AP score. By evening she hosted 3415 friends at her graduation party (or did it only seem that many) and spent the summer on a nonstop farewell social whirl while fitting in enough hours of work to stash away enough cash to keep her in gelatto this fall.
Now, today, she's been back to NYU for orientation and registered for classes, including one about the relevance of Marxism today, and met dozens of future classmates, got her first choice of dorms, and made plans with a new friend to spend a day at the US Open. Soon she will celebrate her 18th birthday with yet another party, say farewell to driving for the next 9 months, get on an airplane and fly off to NYC to pick up all the stuff ordered in advance from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and join the 65,000 other freshmen descending upon New York City (and close environs) this fall.
Who will mock my jokes, give me fashion advice, leave the drivers' seat four feet back from my usual setting and the car radio on a station that plays music that isn't, offer nuggets of profound wisdom as she moves through the house, and keep the garage door going up and down on a frequent basis with her coming and going and going and going?
One month from today. I have a feeling it will come in about four minutes.
She didn't find my riff amusing. I thought it was hilarious, clever, and instructional. If you're going to leave Qdoba with a fresh refill of Diet Coke, you'd better put a lid on it.
But who will laugh at my stupid humor in a month? She'll be gone.
One month from today Annika and I leave for college. That is, of course, to say, Annika and I will leave for New York City where she will enter New York University and I will help her move into her dorm on Washington Square and then get back on an airplane, alone, and come home.
One month. One more month. But -- lame, trite, momism alert: it was last week that she slept through her baptism and the party afterward, and six days ago that she and her pre-school pals Kristin and Meredith and Collette spent an hour simply staring at giraffes as they ate, at the Brookfield Zoo. And five days ago that she and Julia crossed the bridge by the dandelion fountain on the Naperville Riverwalk to become full-fledged Brownies, and later that same day she so convinced her first grade teacher that she was an adopted Indian Princess that I got a phone call that night, "is Annika adopted?"
And four days ago she was astonished by this contraption our neighbor, Linda, pulled out, and asked, "what's an iron?" A few hours later she and Kari played horses for hours in our backyard, soon after receiving a special gift from cousin Noah who gave her a huge wrapped package and whispered to her, "It's for you! It's a surprise! It's a horse!"
Three days ago she wore a cap and gown and graduated from grade school, then went off to spend every morning of middle school, before classes started walking the hallways with Emily. Later that afternoon she went off to Dublin and London and Edinburgh and the villages of Wales with her children's choir, came home and in the evening hosted her bestest friends for her first annual Bastille Day LBD dinner.
Two days ago she went to New York City for the first time, fell in love with it, and went back again before lunch, on her own for a week to visit and confirm her passion for the city and for NYU. It's not just one thing but everything, the people, the energy, the architecture, the walking, the subway, the diversity, the craziness, the concentration of intellectual and creative and world-class resources.
Yesterday she left no doubt about her leadership skills and commitments, even being singled out for her leadership role within her 2200 member student body at Arapaho by the principal at commencement, and made certain she would never have to take another math class with her AP score. By evening she hosted 3415 friends at her graduation party (or did it only seem that many) and spent the summer on a nonstop farewell social whirl while fitting in enough hours of work to stash away enough cash to keep her in gelatto this fall.
Now, today, she's been back to NYU for orientation and registered for classes, including one about the relevance of Marxism today, and met dozens of future classmates, got her first choice of dorms, and made plans with a new friend to spend a day at the US Open. Soon she will celebrate her 18th birthday with yet another party, say farewell to driving for the next 9 months, get on an airplane and fly off to NYC to pick up all the stuff ordered in advance from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and join the 65,000 other freshmen descending upon New York City (and close environs) this fall.
Who will mock my jokes, give me fashion advice, leave the drivers' seat four feet back from my usual setting and the car radio on a station that plays music that isn't, offer nuggets of profound wisdom as she moves through the house, and keep the garage door going up and down on a frequent basis with her coming and going and going and going?
One month from today. I have a feeling it will come in about four minutes.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Where there's smoke there's
Delusion.
True story: A journalist sits across the desk from a high-ranking Communist party official in Hungary in @ 1955, tall windows revealing a broad view of the city of Budapest.
"Where is the fire?" asks the journalist, pointing to dark thick smoke across town.
"What fire?" the official responds. "I see no fire."
Kati Marton writes a disturbing new book, Enemies of the People, describing her parents' arrest on trumped up charges of spying for the U.S. during the early days of the Cold War. It could be about Poland too, or Czechoslovakia or East Germany. The rampant paranoia that seems almost silly to us now, certainly outrageous, overblown, hysterical was common.
In this passage she is writing about the absence of bad news in the news media in Eastern Europe, "behind the Iron Curtain," as she calls it, during those days. Her parents were viewed as dangerous simply because they told the truth, or sometimes only pointed toward it. One couldn't even acknowledge the reality of a fire out in the open, across town.
"Fire? I see no fire."
Delusion.
It's me again.
There are so many delightful, beautiful, lovely things to write about. Aspen, listening to an excellent orchestra play Copland while lying under gently swaying trees and a blue sky, an evening of really fun patriotic music and fireworks on the 4th of July. Waking up early for Wimbledon, and the World Cup, and now the Tour de France. I'm enjoying my tour de France very much. Good friends, loving conversations, keen insights. The pleasure of a fine glass of wine, an excellent vegan salad, watermelon, my best friend from high school's graduation from another master's program, Palm Springs, more Aspen, the thrill of finding the right words, a true sentence, for the novel. Surprises, brilliant observations. The pure dark outline of mountains against the barely light sky. An excellent report from the doctor (yes!). So much so much, so much goodness.
But here I write about the badness. Much of the time. Having discerned that for the time it is my calling to write about ugliness, to shine light in dark corners, I come to you again with this ugly story of an ugly time, a legacy of dysfunction, betrayal, and mistrust that has fall-out that continues to affect the lives of millions in Central (Eastern) Europe to this day.
Being asked to ignore the obvious. Believe the ridiculous. See the invisible. Pretend reality. Pretend pretend pretend. And maybe pretty soon it will seem true.
Marton goes on to write about her father, a sophisticated, cultured, worldly, urbane and elegant man, with a Ph.D and plenty of practical sense, nevertheless,
"that he still trusted his captors to keep their word, still trusted his cell mates with his confidences, was still shocked and appalled when they did not, is a hallmark of a man who seemed incapable of recognizing the full deceit of the (Communist) regime...He simply could not participate in their universe of lying, cheating, betraying, torturing, and subverting." (page 140)
His naivete was stunning.
It was an unreal world. One that many choose to close the door on afterward and forget completely. And in some ways, who can blame them?
But Kati Marton chooses to shine a light on this dark time, to bore down to the truth, no matter how scary it may be.
Okay, so here's the creepy part. I recognized that scene. It played out almost exactly the same in my life, yes, in Poland sometimes. "Fire, I do not see a fire."
But that's NOT the creepy part. I recognized it from the church. From my encounters with the official of the church who sat across the desk from me in his office almost eight years ago to this day and said, in effect, "fire? I do not see a fire."
What he actually said was, "I do not know of any history of clergy sexual abuse in that church."
Never mind, he was the one to tell me about the history of the congregation in the first place, three years earlier. When it seemed safe for him. When it wasn't inconvenient for him.
Why it became unsafe, inconvenient for him to live without delusion, "no fire," I honestly don't know. But it did. And his abandonment of truth pulled the rug out from under me. It felt like a slow-motion slide off the side of a cliff.
And I was likewise disbelieving, still trusting my superiors, my colleagues, still shocked and appalled when they betrayed my trust. I was likewise incapable of comprehending the full deceit of the 'regime.' I could not believe and enter their "universe of lying, cheating, betraying, torturing, and subverting." My naivete was stunning. It still seems unreal. But I took detailed notes. There was a follow-up conversation. She took notes. It happened. It really did. Unbelievable.
Stunning naivete. And devastation when I finally took it in. To say nothing of the consequences, in terms of the behavior of parishioners who knew then it was truly "open season" on Jan.
So. One learned over the forty post-War (WWII) years of communist regimes in eastern Europe to begrudgingly accept the reality of that deceit and delusion coming from officialdom.
But, in the church?
True story: A journalist sits across the desk from a high-ranking Communist party official in Hungary in @ 1955, tall windows revealing a broad view of the city of Budapest.
"Where is the fire?" asks the journalist, pointing to dark thick smoke across town.
"What fire?" the official responds. "I see no fire."
Kati Marton writes a disturbing new book, Enemies of the People, describing her parents' arrest on trumped up charges of spying for the U.S. during the early days of the Cold War. It could be about Poland too, or Czechoslovakia or East Germany. The rampant paranoia that seems almost silly to us now, certainly outrageous, overblown, hysterical was common.
In this passage she is writing about the absence of bad news in the news media in Eastern Europe, "behind the Iron Curtain," as she calls it, during those days. Her parents were viewed as dangerous simply because they told the truth, or sometimes only pointed toward it. One couldn't even acknowledge the reality of a fire out in the open, across town.
"Fire? I see no fire."
Delusion.
It's me again.
There are so many delightful, beautiful, lovely things to write about. Aspen, listening to an excellent orchestra play Copland while lying under gently swaying trees and a blue sky, an evening of really fun patriotic music and fireworks on the 4th of July. Waking up early for Wimbledon, and the World Cup, and now the Tour de France. I'm enjoying my tour de France very much. Good friends, loving conversations, keen insights. The pleasure of a fine glass of wine, an excellent vegan salad, watermelon, my best friend from high school's graduation from another master's program, Palm Springs, more Aspen, the thrill of finding the right words, a true sentence, for the novel. Surprises, brilliant observations. The pure dark outline of mountains against the barely light sky. An excellent report from the doctor (yes!). So much so much, so much goodness.
But here I write about the badness. Much of the time. Having discerned that for the time it is my calling to write about ugliness, to shine light in dark corners, I come to you again with this ugly story of an ugly time, a legacy of dysfunction, betrayal, and mistrust that has fall-out that continues to affect the lives of millions in Central (Eastern) Europe to this day.
Being asked to ignore the obvious. Believe the ridiculous. See the invisible. Pretend reality. Pretend pretend pretend. And maybe pretty soon it will seem true.
Marton goes on to write about her father, a sophisticated, cultured, worldly, urbane and elegant man, with a Ph.D and plenty of practical sense, nevertheless,
"that he still trusted his captors to keep their word, still trusted his cell mates with his confidences, was still shocked and appalled when they did not, is a hallmark of a man who seemed incapable of recognizing the full deceit of the (Communist) regime...He simply could not participate in their universe of lying, cheating, betraying, torturing, and subverting." (page 140)
His naivete was stunning.
It was an unreal world. One that many choose to close the door on afterward and forget completely. And in some ways, who can blame them?
But Kati Marton chooses to shine a light on this dark time, to bore down to the truth, no matter how scary it may be.
Okay, so here's the creepy part. I recognized that scene. It played out almost exactly the same in my life, yes, in Poland sometimes. "Fire, I do not see a fire."
But that's NOT the creepy part. I recognized it from the church. From my encounters with the official of the church who sat across the desk from me in his office almost eight years ago to this day and said, in effect, "fire? I do not see a fire."
What he actually said was, "I do not know of any history of clergy sexual abuse in that church."
Never mind, he was the one to tell me about the history of the congregation in the first place, three years earlier. When it seemed safe for him. When it wasn't inconvenient for him.
Why it became unsafe, inconvenient for him to live without delusion, "no fire," I honestly don't know. But it did. And his abandonment of truth pulled the rug out from under me. It felt like a slow-motion slide off the side of a cliff.
And I was likewise disbelieving, still trusting my superiors, my colleagues, still shocked and appalled when they betrayed my trust. I was likewise incapable of comprehending the full deceit of the 'regime.' I could not believe and enter their "universe of lying, cheating, betraying, torturing, and subverting." My naivete was stunning. It still seems unreal. But I took detailed notes. There was a follow-up conversation. She took notes. It happened. It really did. Unbelievable.
Stunning naivete. And devastation when I finally took it in. To say nothing of the consequences, in terms of the behavior of parishioners who knew then it was truly "open season" on Jan.
So. One learned over the forty post-War (WWII) years of communist regimes in eastern Europe to begrudgingly accept the reality of that deceit and delusion coming from officialdom.
But, in the church?
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Will tomorrow finally be Independence Day in Poland?
It is about time. Beyond time. Past due.
Poland is voting for President on July 4th. And it is a deal-changing election.
Past? or Future?
Neither candidate inspires much enthusiasm. Well, maybe that's not true. The candidate of the past does stir the passions of those who wish to remain rooted in an anti-Russian, anti-European, anti-Semitic (sorry, but true), hyper-Catholic and so-called patriotic Polish lala land. He is the twin brother of the late President, Lech Kaczynski, and has made this election more a referendum about what really happened on the fateful morning in Smolensk three months ago when the president's plane crashed on landing, killing him and 96 others on board, than about what is required for Poland's vibrant, vigorous, productive future.
Firstly, let it be noted that what really happened in Smolensk when the plane slammed into a hillside in fog is most likely determined: the pilots failed to follow urgent instructions to NOT land the plane and crashed it. But, despite overtures of good will from Russian authorities, and logical analysis, Kaczynski the Brother has continued to be churlish and childish not only about this but about other issues related to Polish history and the relative bona fides of himself and his opponent. "Who's is bigger" is one take on the campaign.
Lots of sentimentality has been mucked up, to the extent that Kaczynski the Latter, whose brother the president a few months ago was most certain to lose in the upcoming scheduled election -- against almost anyone -- is running neck and neck with the candidate whose party was leading by as many as 20 percentage points or more, at the time of the crash. It has become a referendum on nostalgia or sympathy for a dead president's poor brother more than a real debate and decision about serious issues.
This is not a good thing.
The other candidate is not exactly Mr. Excitement. Lackluster, uninspiring, not yet as bold as their leadership needs to be, but at least he is oriented toward reason, toward positive relationships with their neighbors, and progressive policies at home. So, the message is, get over it, get over your boredom with Komorowski and just do the right thing.
We're not the only ones, here in the States, whose politics are thoroughly mucked up. The Poles are teetering between taking steps into the 21st century, as is their due, or wallowing in past grievances and petty gripes.
My Polish friends have mostly gone to bed now. They will be up early, as they are among those who desperately care. They will vote early (and, were they in Chicago back in the day, they could vote often). They have editorialized and campaigned and tried to bring logic and wisdom into the debate and to the decision.
The attached (I hope) link to the last editorial in Polityka in advance of this election asserts that, however one may feel, sentimentally, about the past, the former president, the church, "Poland is more important." They argue for sensible, thoughtful, forward-looking decision-making on the part of every voter. God, I hope the people come through.
I hope the voters get it right this time so that when they all wake up on Monday morning, they will be free at last from the worst of the worst of the past several years, and free to move, to move on, to grow, to thrive.
Heaven knows, they so deserve it!
Poland is voting for President on July 4th. And it is a deal-changing election.
Past? or Future?
Neither candidate inspires much enthusiasm. Well, maybe that's not true. The candidate of the past does stir the passions of those who wish to remain rooted in an anti-Russian, anti-European, anti-Semitic (sorry, but true), hyper-Catholic and so-called patriotic Polish lala land. He is the twin brother of the late President, Lech Kaczynski, and has made this election more a referendum about what really happened on the fateful morning in Smolensk three months ago when the president's plane crashed on landing, killing him and 96 others on board, than about what is required for Poland's vibrant, vigorous, productive future.
Firstly, let it be noted that what really happened in Smolensk when the plane slammed into a hillside in fog is most likely determined: the pilots failed to follow urgent instructions to NOT land the plane and crashed it. But, despite overtures of good will from Russian authorities, and logical analysis, Kaczynski the Brother has continued to be churlish and childish not only about this but about other issues related to Polish history and the relative bona fides of himself and his opponent. "Who's is bigger" is one take on the campaign.
Lots of sentimentality has been mucked up, to the extent that Kaczynski the Latter, whose brother the president a few months ago was most certain to lose in the upcoming scheduled election -- against almost anyone -- is running neck and neck with the candidate whose party was leading by as many as 20 percentage points or more, at the time of the crash. It has become a referendum on nostalgia or sympathy for a dead president's poor brother more than a real debate and decision about serious issues.
This is not a good thing.
The other candidate is not exactly Mr. Excitement. Lackluster, uninspiring, not yet as bold as their leadership needs to be, but at least he is oriented toward reason, toward positive relationships with their neighbors, and progressive policies at home. So, the message is, get over it, get over your boredom with Komorowski and just do the right thing.
We're not the only ones, here in the States, whose politics are thoroughly mucked up. The Poles are teetering between taking steps into the 21st century, as is their due, or wallowing in past grievances and petty gripes.
My Polish friends have mostly gone to bed now. They will be up early, as they are among those who desperately care. They will vote early (and, were they in Chicago back in the day, they could vote often). They have editorialized and campaigned and tried to bring logic and wisdom into the debate and to the decision.
The attached (I hope) link to the last editorial in Polityka in advance of this election asserts that, however one may feel, sentimentally, about the past, the former president, the church, "Poland is more important." They argue for sensible, thoughtful, forward-looking decision-making on the part of every voter. God, I hope the people come through.
I hope the voters get it right this time so that when they all wake up on Monday morning, they will be free at last from the worst of the worst of the past several years, and free to move, to move on, to grow, to thrive.
Heaven knows, they so deserve it!
Thursday, July 1, 2010
My KGB file starts out like this,
"I am a lightbulb."
That is the opening line in my KGB file.
Oh yes, I have my spy stories too. Nothing intentional. Just the usual Cold War goofiness about being followed and watched and having rooms and phones bugged. And a couple of incidents that might make it, albeit altered, into the novel.
But of course I have been thinking of spies again this week. And what a crazy business that is!
And while others have been suggesting that the Russian spies could have discovered everything they wanted to know on the internet, it has occurred to me: there is an organization or two that they would do well to infiltrate.
Walmart. God help us.
And Nordstrom.
Moscow currently has the highest cost of living in the world. It is listed on a reliable cost of living index as being 50% higher than that of New York. Geneva Switzerland was only ten percent above New York, in fourth place and Tokyo was up there in the top three.
But the average Moscovite is not getting any value for their outlay. The place is still a wreck.
What they need to learn is how to produce and sell retail goods for a reasonable price.
Let it here be said, for the record, that I hate Walmart. For a number of reasons that have all to do with fairness and justice. So I really don't want Russia to emulate them. Not exactly. But perhaps some spies could figure out a better way to do it without ruining the small-time producers they court and co-op and then ditch, and the small town stores that get run out of business.
Heaven only knows, the Russians need to figure out how to get reasonable amounts of consumer goods into the hands, and apartments, of reasonable numbers of people.
And then, while they're at it, I'm thinking customer service lessons would be in order. And who does that better than Nordstrom? Thank you notes are a bit over the top but, still, I appreciate being appreciated. And the live piano is a nice touch.
For that matter, Macy's, Penney's, and Sear's would do well to take lessons from Nordstrom too. For example, when a customer is standing with a large number of clothes, the worker-person might consider asking if they need help instead of continuing a conversation with their co-worker about the restaurant they tried last night for dinner. Really. Or talking on the phone with their sister. I mean, really.
That is pretty Soviet-era-ish. One counted on rude and inattentive clerks in Soviet-era Eastern Europe. You felt honored, shocked and surprised to be waited on. This has changed entirely in Poland. It is a very customer friendly environment. But not so much in Russia. Or the local Macy's.
So, whatever they do, I recommend the neighborhood spies skip that place.
That is the opening line in my KGB file.
Oh yes, I have my spy stories too. Nothing intentional. Just the usual Cold War goofiness about being followed and watched and having rooms and phones bugged. And a couple of incidents that might make it, albeit altered, into the novel.
But of course I have been thinking of spies again this week. And what a crazy business that is!
And while others have been suggesting that the Russian spies could have discovered everything they wanted to know on the internet, it has occurred to me: there is an organization or two that they would do well to infiltrate.
Walmart. God help us.
And Nordstrom.
Moscow currently has the highest cost of living in the world. It is listed on a reliable cost of living index as being 50% higher than that of New York. Geneva Switzerland was only ten percent above New York, in fourth place and Tokyo was up there in the top three.
But the average Moscovite is not getting any value for their outlay. The place is still a wreck.
What they need to learn is how to produce and sell retail goods for a reasonable price.
Let it here be said, for the record, that I hate Walmart. For a number of reasons that have all to do with fairness and justice. So I really don't want Russia to emulate them. Not exactly. But perhaps some spies could figure out a better way to do it without ruining the small-time producers they court and co-op and then ditch, and the small town stores that get run out of business.
Heaven only knows, the Russians need to figure out how to get reasonable amounts of consumer goods into the hands, and apartments, of reasonable numbers of people.
And then, while they're at it, I'm thinking customer service lessons would be in order. And who does that better than Nordstrom? Thank you notes are a bit over the top but, still, I appreciate being appreciated. And the live piano is a nice touch.
For that matter, Macy's, Penney's, and Sear's would do well to take lessons from Nordstrom too. For example, when a customer is standing with a large number of clothes, the worker-person might consider asking if they need help instead of continuing a conversation with their co-worker about the restaurant they tried last night for dinner. Really. Or talking on the phone with their sister. I mean, really.
That is pretty Soviet-era-ish. One counted on rude and inattentive clerks in Soviet-era Eastern Europe. You felt honored, shocked and surprised to be waited on. This has changed entirely in Poland. It is a very customer friendly environment. But not so much in Russia. Or the local Macy's.
So, whatever they do, I recommend the neighborhood spies skip that place.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
"I swear to tell the truth,"
"I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
Under penalty of perjury, I was sworn in and promised to tell the truth, not to cover up what was inconvenient or unfortunate, to answer all questions truthfully without intent to deceive.
And so I did.
One of the hardest things I've ever been asked to do was testify, under oath, against friends, valued colleagues, a community I respected. But I had to tell the truth.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and one of its seminaries and members of its faculty were being sued in 2003 by the families of young boys who had been molested by an ELCA pastor. The pastor had already been found guilty in criminal court and was in prison.
Why the lawsuit?
Because his sexual misconduct while on an internship during seminary had been reported. Because the church ordained him anyway and turned him loose, gave him access to reoffend. Had the warnings been heeded, he would not have been granted pastoral authority and access in a small Texas town to lure teen-age boys into relationships where they were vulnerable and were then molested.
As I remember (I was deep into my own early days of PTSD at the time), I was primarily an expert witness. Which is to say, called upon to testify about the plans and policies put in place by the ELCA, of which I was an author and had been director during the time period in question, which were not followed in this case.
Essentially, the question was, did we know better? Did the seminary and the faculty and the church know better when it ordained and sent this pastor into an unsuspecting parish and town?
I had to say, yes. They did. I knew they did. I was there when they heard, and learned and discussed it.
It was awkward at best and painful as well to have to testify, essentially, against good friends and colleagues who had, frankly, blown it. Blown it big time.
What is the higher value, loyalty? Or, as the Scriptures tell us again and again and again and again (which is to say, all the time), to protect the vulnerable, the weak, the lost?
What is our highest responsibility? Safety. And, as the Hippocratic Oath demans of physicians, to do no harm.
It was a wrenching day. Eight full hours of testimony. It stirred up a lot of current shit. I'd recently been attacked for being disloyal to "the team" and dangerous to an ongoing cover-up elsewhere in the ELCA. I had already suffered, and suffer still, for threatening the status quo.
The colleagues who had most to lose on that day were classy and mature enough to understand that I did what I had to do. I did what was the right thing to do. I told the truth. And I'd do it again.
I may have to.
Under penalty of perjury, I was sworn in and promised to tell the truth, not to cover up what was inconvenient or unfortunate, to answer all questions truthfully without intent to deceive.
And so I did.
One of the hardest things I've ever been asked to do was testify, under oath, against friends, valued colleagues, a community I respected. But I had to tell the truth.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and one of its seminaries and members of its faculty were being sued in 2003 by the families of young boys who had been molested by an ELCA pastor. The pastor had already been found guilty in criminal court and was in prison.
Why the lawsuit?
Because his sexual misconduct while on an internship during seminary had been reported. Because the church ordained him anyway and turned him loose, gave him access to reoffend. Had the warnings been heeded, he would not have been granted pastoral authority and access in a small Texas town to lure teen-age boys into relationships where they were vulnerable and were then molested.
As I remember (I was deep into my own early days of PTSD at the time), I was primarily an expert witness. Which is to say, called upon to testify about the plans and policies put in place by the ELCA, of which I was an author and had been director during the time period in question, which were not followed in this case.
Essentially, the question was, did we know better? Did the seminary and the faculty and the church know better when it ordained and sent this pastor into an unsuspecting parish and town?
I had to say, yes. They did. I knew they did. I was there when they heard, and learned and discussed it.
It was awkward at best and painful as well to have to testify, essentially, against good friends and colleagues who had, frankly, blown it. Blown it big time.
What is the higher value, loyalty? Or, as the Scriptures tell us again and again and again and again (which is to say, all the time), to protect the vulnerable, the weak, the lost?
What is our highest responsibility? Safety. And, as the Hippocratic Oath demans of physicians, to do no harm.
It was a wrenching day. Eight full hours of testimony. It stirred up a lot of current shit. I'd recently been attacked for being disloyal to "the team" and dangerous to an ongoing cover-up elsewhere in the ELCA. I had already suffered, and suffer still, for threatening the status quo.
The colleagues who had most to lose on that day were classy and mature enough to understand that I did what I had to do. I did what was the right thing to do. I told the truth. And I'd do it again.
I may have to.
Is Lightness Bearable?
Much as we say we love light, we often don't.
Bertold Brecht wrote, "Mankind cannot stand too much reality."
I'm not always a big fan of reality myself. Harsh realities intrude on our summer moments, ugly truths rear their ugly heads and we're back in the thick of it.
I can't believe how much, how penetrating, and how important is the media coverage of clergy sexual abuse these days. Of course, we who are not Roman Catholic read with a certain illusory comfort: this is not our problem.
But, oh, friends, it is. It is it is it is.
My seventeen-year-old friends get it. Adults having sex with children, even adolescents, is wrong. It is even more wrong when those adults are persons with positions of trust and authority viz those young people. It is even worse when those adults are clergy, or preparing to become clergy, as we have acknowledged standards about sexual behavior, and about the appropriate use of our power, that are explicit. And at the heart of what we do.
It is wrong, so they tell me, for persons in positions of trust, power and authority to use that power for their own personal pleasure and benefit. Whether their victims are children or adults. It's all about power. The abuse of power. It is wrong. Like I said, seventeen-year-olds have this figured out. Why is it so difficult for church leaders? The behavior is wrong. Harmful. Manipulative. Contrary to our promises to respect and build up the people of God.
And it is even worse when the behavior is covered-up.
The Vatican is finally feeling the weight of all these failures to protect the innocent, by allowing offenders, perpetrators continuing access to vulnerable parishioners.
Their problem is ours. Our commitment has "eroded" in recent years, as one journalist put it recently. We have continued to cover up the sexual abuse, misconduct, harassment -- call it all of those things -- of our clergy. And allow them access, power, authority and access to persons who can become vulnerable to their sexual overtures, advances, and behaviors.
We do it. We do it. We keep fucking doing it. When will we learn? What will it take?
Meanwhile, when clergy are finally 'outed,' whether specifically for their sexual or covered over by references to other misconduct, the church rallies around them with good wishes, prayers, and strong warnings to avoid judgment, given that "we all sin." I have no problem with praying for broken persons, be they clergy or not.
But it is wrong, it is immoral and a failure of our Christian calling and unity as the body of Christ to not also lift up those who have become victims of that 'fallen' behavior. I find that completely absent from any recent news about clergy who are experiencing addictions and emotional distress.
Let's remember the emotional distress of their victims. Let's lift them up and make sure they are receiving the same level of expert psychological care we extend to the offenders. Let's lift them up, hold them close in our hearts, and, while protecting their confidentiality, make clear that the main problem is what happened to them.
Is lightness bearable? Not yet. Not in this church, not in a lot of places. When can we find the courage to tell the truth? When will we find the courage, and the compassion, to expose our whole lives to the light of God's grace (and the community's awareness).
Let's trust the laity of the church, let's respect them. Let's let the light shine.
If we dare.
Bertold Brecht wrote, "Mankind cannot stand too much reality."
I'm not always a big fan of reality myself. Harsh realities intrude on our summer moments, ugly truths rear their ugly heads and we're back in the thick of it.
I can't believe how much, how penetrating, and how important is the media coverage of clergy sexual abuse these days. Of course, we who are not Roman Catholic read with a certain illusory comfort: this is not our problem.
But, oh, friends, it is. It is it is it is.
My seventeen-year-old friends get it. Adults having sex with children, even adolescents, is wrong. It is even more wrong when those adults are persons with positions of trust and authority viz those young people. It is even worse when those adults are clergy, or preparing to become clergy, as we have acknowledged standards about sexual behavior, and about the appropriate use of our power, that are explicit. And at the heart of what we do.
It is wrong, so they tell me, for persons in positions of trust, power and authority to use that power for their own personal pleasure and benefit. Whether their victims are children or adults. It's all about power. The abuse of power. It is wrong. Like I said, seventeen-year-olds have this figured out. Why is it so difficult for church leaders? The behavior is wrong. Harmful. Manipulative. Contrary to our promises to respect and build up the people of God.
And it is even worse when the behavior is covered-up.
The Vatican is finally feeling the weight of all these failures to protect the innocent, by allowing offenders, perpetrators continuing access to vulnerable parishioners.
Their problem is ours. Our commitment has "eroded" in recent years, as one journalist put it recently. We have continued to cover up the sexual abuse, misconduct, harassment -- call it all of those things -- of our clergy. And allow them access, power, authority and access to persons who can become vulnerable to their sexual overtures, advances, and behaviors.
We do it. We do it. We keep fucking doing it. When will we learn? What will it take?
Meanwhile, when clergy are finally 'outed,' whether specifically for their sexual or covered over by references to other misconduct, the church rallies around them with good wishes, prayers, and strong warnings to avoid judgment, given that "we all sin." I have no problem with praying for broken persons, be they clergy or not.
But it is wrong, it is immoral and a failure of our Christian calling and unity as the body of Christ to not also lift up those who have become victims of that 'fallen' behavior. I find that completely absent from any recent news about clergy who are experiencing addictions and emotional distress.
Let's remember the emotional distress of their victims. Let's lift them up and make sure they are receiving the same level of expert psychological care we extend to the offenders. Let's lift them up, hold them close in our hearts, and, while protecting their confidentiality, make clear that the main problem is what happened to them.
Is lightness bearable? Not yet. Not in this church, not in a lot of places. When can we find the courage to tell the truth? When will we find the courage, and the compassion, to expose our whole lives to the light of God's grace (and the community's awareness).
Let's trust the laity of the church, let's respect them. Let's let the light shine.
If we dare.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Home, Home on the.....
range, the plains, the mountain, the desert.
It's time to stay home for awhile. Or at least until Friday.
The past several weeks have been filled with travel. Long road trips. Three trips between Denver and Minneapolis. Quick flights. Minneapolis, Denver. Long flights. Denver, Las Vegas, Palm Springs. Short Drives. Aspen.
I've watched World Cup Soccer games in Denver, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and Aspen. That's just weird.
It's not normal, not for me. It's just the way things have gone since the early part of May. Graduations. Kaia's move back to the Twin Cities. My brother's 50th birthday in Palm Springs. And a writing week in Aspen.
Not a bad life.
Meanwhile, the Poles have failed to elect a President, Isner and Mahut played the longest tennis match in history, the Polish women are still in it at Wimbledon, albeit not always in Polish 'uniforms,' and two Poles scored the first goals this morning for Germany in their crucial knock-out football match against England.
It's a funny thing. If you want to cheer for the Poles, you have to look for them. They have emigrated and play for Denmark (or Monte Carlo, depending upon if you count official or tax-purposed residence), Canada, Australia, Germany and, rarely, even the country of Poland itself.
So it goes. These days it is not for political purposes but economic ones that Poles continue to leave home. But Caroline Wozniacki is a perfect example of what has drained some of Poland's best talent in the past.
Caroline Wozniacki, she of the beautifully fashionable lavender outfit in last year's U.S. Open, is the daughter of two Polish atheletes. They left Poland in the 1980's, during a still-repressive political era and one in which they had few opportunities to shine. They found their way to Denmark. Where Caroline was born and raised. She speaks Danish and Polish fluently. She plays under a Danish flag, but within her beats a still partly Polish heart. She is so typical.
A diaspora, of sorts, of East Europeans have found their way around the world. Poland, meanwhile, could really use them. But doesn't make it easy for them to thrive. Regressive tax and other business regulations make it difficult for many. The long slog toward privatization of major business lumbers on. And labor / work opportunities are not always plentiful. It can be so difficult to begin one's own business that many give up.
Mind you, it is so much better than it was. But not yet enough.
So, as I'm back at home, suitcases put all the way away in the basement for now -- at least until Friday -- I can see Poles in action for teams around the world.
And, if National Book Award winner Colum McCann, a very cool and brilliant, delightful, humble, classy man, whom I met this week in Aspen, is right, we're all becoming "mongrels," people who belong to many places and nations at once.
Moving back and forth, with dual citizenship and multiple identities, we shrink the world even as we enlarge it. And that's not weird. It's just pretty dang cool. I'm home in so many places. And even when I'm standing in a slow queue to board an airplane, or bumping over the desert mountains (that really ought to become full of wind turbines!)in a tiny plane, or stopping at four a.m. at an Iowa truck stop, or lurching in rush hour traffic on Hwy 82 toward Aspen, or here again "in my room," on a lazy Sunday morning, I think that is amazing. Lucky. Blessed. And very very cool.
"Let the whole world spin."
It's time to stay home for awhile. Or at least until Friday.
The past several weeks have been filled with travel. Long road trips. Three trips between Denver and Minneapolis. Quick flights. Minneapolis, Denver. Long flights. Denver, Las Vegas, Palm Springs. Short Drives. Aspen.
I've watched World Cup Soccer games in Denver, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and Aspen. That's just weird.
It's not normal, not for me. It's just the way things have gone since the early part of May. Graduations. Kaia's move back to the Twin Cities. My brother's 50th birthday in Palm Springs. And a writing week in Aspen.
Not a bad life.
Meanwhile, the Poles have failed to elect a President, Isner and Mahut played the longest tennis match in history, the Polish women are still in it at Wimbledon, albeit not always in Polish 'uniforms,' and two Poles scored the first goals this morning for Germany in their crucial knock-out football match against England.
It's a funny thing. If you want to cheer for the Poles, you have to look for them. They have emigrated and play for Denmark (or Monte Carlo, depending upon if you count official or tax-purposed residence), Canada, Australia, Germany and, rarely, even the country of Poland itself.
So it goes. These days it is not for political purposes but economic ones that Poles continue to leave home. But Caroline Wozniacki is a perfect example of what has drained some of Poland's best talent in the past.
Caroline Wozniacki, she of the beautifully fashionable lavender outfit in last year's U.S. Open, is the daughter of two Polish atheletes. They left Poland in the 1980's, during a still-repressive political era and one in which they had few opportunities to shine. They found their way to Denmark. Where Caroline was born and raised. She speaks Danish and Polish fluently. She plays under a Danish flag, but within her beats a still partly Polish heart. She is so typical.
A diaspora, of sorts, of East Europeans have found their way around the world. Poland, meanwhile, could really use them. But doesn't make it easy for them to thrive. Regressive tax and other business regulations make it difficult for many. The long slog toward privatization of major business lumbers on. And labor / work opportunities are not always plentiful. It can be so difficult to begin one's own business that many give up.
Mind you, it is so much better than it was. But not yet enough.
So, as I'm back at home, suitcases put all the way away in the basement for now -- at least until Friday -- I can see Poles in action for teams around the world.
And, if National Book Award winner Colum McCann, a very cool and brilliant, delightful, humble, classy man, whom I met this week in Aspen, is right, we're all becoming "mongrels," people who belong to many places and nations at once.
Moving back and forth, with dual citizenship and multiple identities, we shrink the world even as we enlarge it. And that's not weird. It's just pretty dang cool. I'm home in so many places. And even when I'm standing in a slow queue to board an airplane, or bumping over the desert mountains (that really ought to become full of wind turbines!)in a tiny plane, or stopping at four a.m. at an Iowa truck stop, or lurching in rush hour traffic on Hwy 82 toward Aspen, or here again "in my room," on a lazy Sunday morning, I think that is amazing. Lucky. Blessed. And very very cool.
"Let the whole world spin."
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Poland Wins! Beats USSR! 0-0
Let's try to get back on track here, Jan: remember Poland?
I was staying with someone who didn't know a soccer ball from a frisbee, and whose radio was so permanently set to BBC and a Polish news station that it was impossible to get the dial to budge.
But not to worry. I heard the play by play from every game Poland played anyway. Through the open windows. And in case I missed something, the communal cheers or groans coming from every building in the neighborhood told me what I needed to know.
It was my first World Cup. 1982. Warsaw. I remember it like it was an hour ago. In fact, as I sit watching this World Cup match between the US and England, and saw the match yesterday between South Africa and Mexico, I am reliving the highs of those weeks in June, 1982.
Out of the television now I hear the familiar buzz of the noise-makers (what DO you call them?) and I'm back again in Warsaw, alone in the afternoon in the apartment on Czestochowska street, sitting at a table with a brown checked table cloth, silent radio sitting against the wall, an old-fashioned brown Polish pottery (empty) sugar bowl and a glass of tea in an elegant metal holder, in the old Russian fashion, set before me. The kitchen windows are wide open on this warm sunny afternoon, matching checked curtains blowing in the breeze. I've opened the windows in the other two rooms for stereo advantage. I sit on the opposite side of my usual spot, closer to the outside, my listening post two precious feet closer to the neighbors' radios.
We didn't have a TV. Nobody had a TV. Well, almost nobody, and those who did had special privilege. The soccer, or really, I should be calling it football pitch was all in our minds, the faces of the players imagined, the open field, the quick footwork, the long passes, the clever manuevering. The afternoon passed in a noisy succession of cheers, sighs, groans and palpable silences.
This was THE game. Poland had won their first match, 3-0, against Belgium. I'd heard that game while out and about, every window in Warsaw open, every block with its own chorus of cheers (there was a lot of cheering that day) and excitement. Afterward, horns had blown and honked and the beaten down, weary, hungry Polish people felt their spirits lifted, after a long, tense winter and spring of martial law.
The militia still patrolled the streets in three's (one to report on the other two, went a joke) with rifles carried stiffly upright in their hands, at their sides. We crossed the street to avoid them, not out of fear but for disgust. It was humiliating, demoralizing to feel like an occupied country, especially when the occupation army was your own.
The stores were empty. We queued for bread. Butter was rationed. The best meals were made of fresh produce, especially tomatoes and cucumbers, sold at the farmers' markets. Did I see a piece of meet?
As a foreigner, I was entitled to shop in the Pewex stores, "dollar stores," where I could use hard currency, western currency, which was the only money with any value in all of Eastern Europe. I traded it, my hundred dollars, on the black market, with various friends (never my host) for a small fortune in zlotys that enabled me to buy whatever I wanted.
What I really wanted was food. But there wasn't any, not in the Polish shops. So I used my valued dollars at the Pewex store in the Victoria Hotel. So we had a few sources of protein, sardines, for God's sake, and my favored Coca Cola, cashews, crackers. Chocolate.
The zlotys I used to buy leather bags, briefcases, purses, jewelry, exquisite carved boxes, a bit of fragile pottery. And magazines for my friend who was rightly proud and agonized at being a recipient of charity. I had to be extra clever and careful to not make it seem that way.
Anyway, the World Cup. Next game up: the Soviet Union. Maybe the Poles and the Soviets fought on the football pitch so they didn't end up on the real battlefields. No, probably not, that's a bit histronic. But it was a highly charged, emotional, high stakes, all out engagement. Especially from the Poles' side. I almost got my sports' agnostic host interested.
So it went, the afternoon, the long afternoon. Ninety minutes of back and forth. I could only imagine all that went on in that stadium. The tension in our neighborhood was almost unbearable. I'd might as well have been in a stadium, for all the noise that poured out of windows above and below and across from my kitchen chair. During half-time I recorded some of these impressions and then settled in for more.
More local commentary, colorful and otherwise. Even the breeze stopped blowing,the day itself held its breath. And then, a final whistle. Game over.
Poland 0. Soviet Union 0.
Poland won!
Holding the Soviet athletic machine scoreless was a moral victory. Stopping the Soviets was an emotional victory. And by virtue of total tournament points scored, Poland won. Poland won the right to advance to the next round.
The Soviets went home.
It was a good night in Warsaw.
And even at home. I opened a bottle of Pewex-purchase Hungarian wine. My host-friend, always more tightly wound than a battery spring, indifferent to the sport, nonetheless, let himself unwind just a little bit.
I was staying with someone who didn't know a soccer ball from a frisbee, and whose radio was so permanently set to BBC and a Polish news station that it was impossible to get the dial to budge.
But not to worry. I heard the play by play from every game Poland played anyway. Through the open windows. And in case I missed something, the communal cheers or groans coming from every building in the neighborhood told me what I needed to know.
It was my first World Cup. 1982. Warsaw. I remember it like it was an hour ago. In fact, as I sit watching this World Cup match between the US and England, and saw the match yesterday between South Africa and Mexico, I am reliving the highs of those weeks in June, 1982.
Out of the television now I hear the familiar buzz of the noise-makers (what DO you call them?) and I'm back again in Warsaw, alone in the afternoon in the apartment on Czestochowska street, sitting at a table with a brown checked table cloth, silent radio sitting against the wall, an old-fashioned brown Polish pottery (empty) sugar bowl and a glass of tea in an elegant metal holder, in the old Russian fashion, set before me. The kitchen windows are wide open on this warm sunny afternoon, matching checked curtains blowing in the breeze. I've opened the windows in the other two rooms for stereo advantage. I sit on the opposite side of my usual spot, closer to the outside, my listening post two precious feet closer to the neighbors' radios.
We didn't have a TV. Nobody had a TV. Well, almost nobody, and those who did had special privilege. The soccer, or really, I should be calling it football pitch was all in our minds, the faces of the players imagined, the open field, the quick footwork, the long passes, the clever manuevering. The afternoon passed in a noisy succession of cheers, sighs, groans and palpable silences.
This was THE game. Poland had won their first match, 3-0, against Belgium. I'd heard that game while out and about, every window in Warsaw open, every block with its own chorus of cheers (there was a lot of cheering that day) and excitement. Afterward, horns had blown and honked and the beaten down, weary, hungry Polish people felt their spirits lifted, after a long, tense winter and spring of martial law.
The militia still patrolled the streets in three's (one to report on the other two, went a joke) with rifles carried stiffly upright in their hands, at their sides. We crossed the street to avoid them, not out of fear but for disgust. It was humiliating, demoralizing to feel like an occupied country, especially when the occupation army was your own.
The stores were empty. We queued for bread. Butter was rationed. The best meals were made of fresh produce, especially tomatoes and cucumbers, sold at the farmers' markets. Did I see a piece of meet?
As a foreigner, I was entitled to shop in the Pewex stores, "dollar stores," where I could use hard currency, western currency, which was the only money with any value in all of Eastern Europe. I traded it, my hundred dollars, on the black market, with various friends (never my host) for a small fortune in zlotys that enabled me to buy whatever I wanted.
What I really wanted was food. But there wasn't any, not in the Polish shops. So I used my valued dollars at the Pewex store in the Victoria Hotel. So we had a few sources of protein, sardines, for God's sake, and my favored Coca Cola, cashews, crackers. Chocolate.
The zlotys I used to buy leather bags, briefcases, purses, jewelry, exquisite carved boxes, a bit of fragile pottery. And magazines for my friend who was rightly proud and agonized at being a recipient of charity. I had to be extra clever and careful to not make it seem that way.
Anyway, the World Cup. Next game up: the Soviet Union. Maybe the Poles and the Soviets fought on the football pitch so they didn't end up on the real battlefields. No, probably not, that's a bit histronic. But it was a highly charged, emotional, high stakes, all out engagement. Especially from the Poles' side. I almost got my sports' agnostic host interested.
So it went, the afternoon, the long afternoon. Ninety minutes of back and forth. I could only imagine all that went on in that stadium. The tension in our neighborhood was almost unbearable. I'd might as well have been in a stadium, for all the noise that poured out of windows above and below and across from my kitchen chair. During half-time I recorded some of these impressions and then settled in for more.
More local commentary, colorful and otherwise. Even the breeze stopped blowing,the day itself held its breath. And then, a final whistle. Game over.
Poland 0. Soviet Union 0.
Poland won!
Holding the Soviet athletic machine scoreless was a moral victory. Stopping the Soviets was an emotional victory. And by virtue of total tournament points scored, Poland won. Poland won the right to advance to the next round.
The Soviets went home.
It was a good night in Warsaw.
And even at home. I opened a bottle of Pewex-purchase Hungarian wine. My host-friend, always more tightly wound than a battery spring, indifferent to the sport, nonetheless, let himself unwind just a little bit.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
And in other news, Pigs Fly!
Polish filmaker, Andrzej Wajda, will receive the Russian Federation State Award of Merit for his outstanding contributions to the struggle for human rights.
The award was established in 2005 and aspires to be an equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize and carries a cash prize, the equivalent of two hundred thousand dollars. Previous winners include former French President Jacques Shirac and Alexander Solzhenitzen. The award ceremony will take place on June 12, the national day for the Russian Federation.
In order words, this is a big honking deal.
Wajda is being honored for his devastating film, Katyn, which was shown on Russian television earlier this spring, both before and after the plane crash near the Katyn Forest that was carrying the Polish president and other high officials to an official ceremony honoring the 22,000 or so Polish leaders who were summarily killed by the Russians in 1940.
Given that Wajda has given his entire career to telling the stories of criminal abuse of human rights within Soviet-dominated Poland, this award is a startling turn of events, to say the least. Like, holy shit!
Okay, the official press reports aren't quite so colorful but the subtext is not terribly hard to find. "Can you believe it?" is the gist of their message.
And no, almost not quite.
On days when other conflicts seem intractable, the Middle East comes to mind, it is good to take in the magnitude of such a step. Maybe there is hope for us all, after all. And who cares if it is partly a PR bid, on the Russians part. I say run with it!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Tennis Saved Me
Was I eight?
I was. Early summer. I had to get out of the house. Away from home. As much as possible.
Time gifts us with forgetfulness of mundane memories thus I can't tell you exactly what it was the unnerved and upset me so, but the ongoing craziness in my family prompted me to look outside for options.
There was, of course, Mrs. Shadle, down the street, my true savior. She paid me a dollar a week --- a fortune --- but best of all she gave me the most precious gift of her time and attention every single day except Sunday, as I came like clockwork to sit next to the piano bench with her son Charles to help him with his piano practice. I don't think he needed me but she knew, intuitively, that I needed her and this 'job,' the time away from home, and most of all, her friendship and kind attention. She listened to me, she valued my opinions, she told me stories about her world --- growing up in Oklahoma. It was heaven. It was nothing at all like home.
But I couldn't stay at the Shadle's all day, even though I often stood in her doorway for forty-five minutes, wrapping up the converstion. Did I stall, or do I remember rightly that sometimes she was the one to prolong our time together? It seemed she truly valued me. And I believe she did. It was heaven.
Beyond her twinkling eyes that matched her pale blue carpet and immaculate home, her infectious laugh, her charming accent and her saying at least once every day, "you cain't win for losing," I had to find other sources of escape. There was the pit trampoline in the neighbors' back yard, where I was welcome anytime to practice back drops and front flips, and there was the tetherball in our backyard where I could batter out my frustrations. But, as time went on, I needed to wander farther and farther afield.
The city offered free tennis lessons every morning. I read about them in the newspaper and persuaded my mother to let me try. Within the week I was hooked. I had my lesson at nine. Then stayed around like a gym rat to hit on empty courts. I hit against the backboard, I hit with other students, I hit with the teachers. I started coming early, by eight, then stayed all morning, walked home for a quick lunch, played all afternoon, went home for supper, and was back at night to hit until we couldn't see the ball. I'd hit with you today if you were willing to hit it right to me -- I'm a lazy slug -- and you would discover I still have a wicked forehand.
And so it went for the next seven summers. All day every day and a return trip in the evenings, to hit with whomever showed up. I walked back and forth the mile and a quarter two or three times a day, that is, until boys began to drive me back and forth. My first dates grew out of tennis play. I saved up and bought my first Davis racquet, the one I still have, restrung a dozen times over the years, and still use from time to time. I remember the first day a kid, the number one singles in the 14 and under division, showed up with a metal racquet. A marvel. Few of us ever got them; we were purists. I remember the change from white to florescent yellow balls; we were suspicious of them, too. I became devoted to Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall and Yvonne Goolagong and Billie Jean King. I developed a tennis tan, socks and all.
Hitting the tennis ball was a kind of zen for me, the repetition, the thwack of the ball cleanly hit, back and forth, back and forth. I frankly preferred hitting against the wall, more predictable returns. I could hit it a hundred times, two hundred, in a row, and hard, too, I might add. It was catharsis, it was meditation, it was pure heaven. I was invited to join the tennis team and have the trophy to prove it -- alas, only one, but a source of satisfaction I've yet to put away.
Later, in high school, our team invented a punishment for losing a league match: eating frozen brussel sprouts. Don't ever serve me brussel sprouts. I don't eat them.
It was my world, a sane, orderly, and fun world. We became a team, we bonded, we supported each other, laughed and cheered each other on. Such a startling, and welcome change from my life at home. I developed self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance, and a clear sense of having power to make my world better or worse. Something within my control.
It was my world, away from my family. How different things are today. Did I miss one of Kaia's soccer games over the years? Maybe, one. One of her basketball games? Maybe, one. Did I miss one of Annika's concerts, plays, musicals? Maybe, no, I don't think so. My mother came to exactly one of my tennis matches, in high school, the regionals, when we had to be driven by a parent and she was the only one available. My dad never saw me play. That wasn't so extreme as it sounds, few parents paid attention. But, still.
The good news: tennis was my world, my haven, my home. And, through all those crazy years, my salvation.
So ask me why I arrange my life, as much as possible, around watching the Grand Slams today. God, I love it.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Scenes from a marriage
Never mind the plan.
We hoped to greet the guests to our wedding on the front steps of the church but a driving rainstorm kept us inside all day. The rehearsal picnic was not at Dawes Park in Evanston but in the quickly prepared home of family friends. But after that, our wedding celebration went exactly as planned. And an interesting plan it was.
I cared not one whit about the reception. It was all ceremony, all music, down to every piece Dagmar played for the prelude, mostly Bach. Claude, Marabeth, Dan, and Charlie (all Facebook friends!)played favorite (and unusual) hymn tunes on recorder. I was mortified later to learn that my father had paid each of them all of five dollars for their work!
In 1976, it was all a bit new. We processed to a congregational hymn, Now Thank We All Our God, each of us escorted by both of our parents. There was no giving away the bride -- a novelty at the time. We wrote a brief rite for each set of parents to affirm the marriage. There was no "and obey" in the vows. We wrote our own, also almost unheard of then. These and the service order soon became one of the options for vows included in (then) "modern wedding services" guidebooks. Our theme, if there was one, was engagement in the world, for justice and peace. Steve Elde, also here on Facebook, designed the bulletin cover, based on an unexpected wedding text, of Jesus, the Vine. And the congregation sang, Thou True Vine That Heals the Nations.
The wedding was strikingly not about us, at least not about us looking in at each other, but about the world, our commitments to be agents together of change, healing, justice in the world. It was probably the least romantic wedding most folks there had ever attended. All of my energy, and I do mean all of my energy as a bride-to-be went into planning the liturgy, the music, the prayers, the readings. And the vows. We recessed to another congregational hymn and made our way to the church basement for the reception.
These were my plans and instructions for the reception: there probably needs to be a cake. And nuts. And Aunt Ruth wanted to bring her special, old-fashioned (even then) mints. I lovingly chose aunts and uncles, cousins and friends to serve the cake and punch and coffee, a big tradition at the time. And that's it. I didn't give a care to decorating, to creating a festive party atmosphere. As far as I was concerned (and Dave, too), the event was over.
The church had apologized to us for the ugly appearance of renovation work in the social hall and we said we really didn't care. We didn't. Having our college friends and our family surrounding us was the main issue, and that was immensely gratifying. But we did nothing to entertain or lighten the mood, to create a joyous celebration at the reception.
No wonder all of our friends made a quick exit and headed to their favorite downtown Chicago clubs and restaurants for a real evening's entertainment! My first clue that perhaps I had underthought the whole reception thing was when a crowd was finalizing plans for a trip to Gino's for pizza and I found myself really wanting to go along!
It was all bread and no circuses. That's the way we were. All about the substance, none about the celebration. I had to fill out a form for my hometown newspaper, in which, in response to their request for a description of my wedding dress I simply wrote, "white." In fact it was a lovely dress and they did a fine job of describing it based upon the accompanying photo. Instead, I detailed the list of music.
In many ways, the wedding has set the tone for the marriage. Flexibility in the face of rain and adversity, earnestness to the point of obsession, purposefulness, an astonishing degree of mutuality and respect, lots of beautiful music in our lives but otherwise not so many circuses. That is, not until later.
I missed the circuses, so to speak, the out of the box, out of control moments of delight and wonder and hilarity. We were altogether too serious. So we learn, thanks especially to Kaia and Annika!
But along the way, the grand new adventure, a 'modern' marriage has proven true. We had an implicit and explicit commitment that both our careers would have equal value and all decisions would be made mutually and with no one's interest automatically trumping the other's. And so it has gone. Going to graduate school together, hyphenating our last name, perhaps the very first in our circle and one of very few anywhere at the time. Moving from one school to another based on mutual needs and desires. Changing 'home' bases altogether, from the Covenant Church we'd been immersed in since birth to the Lutheran Church. Graduating together, setting off on different but compatible, if not disorienting, new adventures. I went off to study in Poland for several months while Dave stayed in Chicago. He chose to work in the non-profit secular world while I continued to prepare for ordination. We supported each other, working to make it easier for the other to pursue their goals.
We wandered a bit, always earnest, always focused on goals beyond ourselves. And, I have to say, we were one hell of a partnership. I can not imagine how anyone could be more supportive of my hopes and goals than Dave. And I sense he would say the same. We made a few difficult decisions and were not always sure at the time they were the right ones but then, in hindsight, we found the upside everytime. We rather regretted leaving Princeton to return to Chicago but then, if we hadn't, we likely wouldn't have ended up in the Lutheran Church, at least not until much later and after a lot more professional frustration. That opened doors we could not have imagined. Even as it closed others. So, in the long run, no regrets.
Dave moved into a new profession, taking a chance on an unknown career path and has prospered, thrived! He is easily, arguably one of the very best in the country at what he does. I dare you to find someone better. Seriously. (No gratuitious praise from me.) Meanwhile, he has graciously balanced his commitments to sharing equally in the responsibilities of caring for our home and then, happily, our daughters. He was never afraid of my using the "F" word (that would be feminist) not only for me but for himself. He has never, not once, made the assumption that his work, his career, his needs were more significant than mine. I believe the same is true for me.
Ten years ago we moved here, to suburban Denver, after twenty productive and happy, successful years of professional life in Chicago. During those years, I managed to be the one more responsible for the house, the girls, our family life. But not because he presumed I should, rather, it was a conscious division of attention that both of us, each of us wanted at the time.
Then, in a major switch, he moved, some would say "followed" me here, so that I could take on an exceptional challenge that made sense at that point in my professional career. He became the primary stay-at-home parent, working from a home office, part-time, and never did the girls lack for attention, help, and all the love they needed. I fell into an 80-hour work week and he kept life sane and functional at home. He supported me unfailingly, and became the rock I counted on for daily support.
As things fell apart at the church, he sheltered me from the worst of the storms and was tireless in caring for the girls while I gradually, then finally, catastrophically, became undone. In the end, he helped to protect me as much as one could even though, in the end, no one could've protected me from the worst. Frankly, no one could have predicted the worst as it unfolded in the final months of 2002.
In these past several years, Dave has been more gracious than I could ever imagine in promoting my recovery and well-being. All the while carrying on with his commitment to caring for the girls and our home. It has got to the point that, while no one could wish for the horrors we all experienced while I served as pastor at Holy Trinity, we have all found the good, the growth, the generative energy that has come from this time since.
It was all such a vast unknown 34 years ago. We had no idea. If anything, we had some different visions for our future. Not all has gone well. Not all has been wonderful. As with anything, there are regrets that are just, and only, that: regrets. Some of our failures can be remedied and redeemed. Some not, that's just the way life is. "You learn. You live, you learn. You lose, you learn. You love, you learn."
The one thing we have no trouble affirming, that our daughters are the greatest gift we've given one another, and the world. Those are the scenes from this marriage that have brought the most fulfillment, delight, and hilarity to us.
So we spent this anniversary with them last night. First, the breathtaking John Adams' composition, The Transmigration of the Souls, and then Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at our world class Colorado Symphony Orchestra. How very very cool that we all love to enjoy that music together. (Which is not to say that Kaia wasn't also checking on the Rockies baseball game during intermission, Annika was making plans via text for today, and I checked my email.)
Then, a nightcap at Racine's. And there was no end to the hilarity around the table. To say nothing of the drive home. We somehow got hooked on singing the Veggie Tales songs, the Silly Songs with Larry. "Not everyone has a water buffalo... Where's my water buffalo?" We are a really fun team, goofy, ridiculous, silly, and also kind. I'm not sure the girls know yet how good it is but we trust that, in time, they will look back, too, and see how special this is.
The scenes from this marriage don't resemble Bergman's vision. Thank God. They are not all happy, not all good, but ultimately they are generative and, given everything, really rather remarkable. Thanks everyone for being there for us way back then, putting up with our rather smug earnestness and our cluelessness about throwing a good party, and thanks to all who entered our lives, for being with us all along the way. Thanks Kaia and Annika for all the joy you've given us. And thanks, Dave, for everything.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
We know you're out there
and we know who you are.
I've been having so much fun lately but it's time to get back to work.
One of the few times and one of the last times the broader media did a story that even mentioned the reality of clergy sexual abuse involving male clergy and an adult woman parishioner was in 2002, the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/13/us/abuse-by-clergy-is-not-just-a-catholic-problem.html?pagewanted=all
"Abuse by Clergy Is Not Just a Catholic Problem" by Jim Yardley rehearses the sordid details of a pedophilia case in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)and adds a note that the ELCA generally has less than one (reported) case of clergy abuse of a child per year but five or so (reported) cases involving adult women who are abused by clergy. It also quoted me as saying that our ELCA intentions are to make the church a safe place.
We have always been appalled by and hold a zero tolerance policy for the abuse of children by clergy. And more and more of the abused children have been coming forward from the past, and more and more children are being explicitly empowered to resist and report abusive behaviors today. The church -- all of it, all of them -- is beginning to be responsible about child sexual abuse within the church. About time.
But as regards women, not so much.
As the former churchwide staff person in the ELCA responsible for directing our response to clergy sexual abuse, who left that posiiton ten years ago, I am disturbed by the church's failure to continue to be assertive in its teaching, its public statements, and, in some instances, its response to specific allegations of abuse. The new resources published since I left are slim to none. The emphasis on preparing bishops to respond appropriately to victims is not what it was.
And clergy who have engaged in clergy sexual misconduct with adult women are still roaming free, serving parishes and in other forms of public ministry.
Why? Callous bishops. Indifferent bishops. The old boys network, cover-ups.
But another reason is the absence of real stories, faces of victims, allegations that become public.
And this is complicated. And, frankly, I'm altogether sympathetic. Young children are immmediately sympathetic victims. Adult women, not so much.
Most of us don't really understand, haven't had the impetus to understand the perverse dynamics that create victims from vulnerable adult female parishioners who are preyed upon by their opportunistic pastors. These are not "affairs." It is sexual abuse. But the women are not received as victims. They are generally blamed for seducing the clergy, even when the opposite is true.
So the women don't come forward. At all. Or, when they do, the church is generally good about protecting their identity. All to the good. And leaving us with no faces. No stories. And no coverage.
That's why I try to shine a light, using this blog for now, on the ugly realities that dare not show their face. I don't want adult women victims coming forward, coming "out" because I know what will happen to them. So I hope to remind you of their presence.
And perhaps, in time, as the churches come to better understand the dynamics of clergy sexual abuse, women victims will feel emboldened to become known. And the perpetrators will be identified too, their behavior will become known. And it will be harder and harder for bishops to keep moving them around.
Meanwhile, read this article from NOW. And forward it to your newspaper editors, writers, publishers. Ask them to cover it. The statistics are shocking. And appalling.
It is a conspiracy of silence that protects these perpetrators. Perhaps we might tell them from time to time, we know you're out there. We know who you are.
http://www.now.org/issues/violence/clergyabuse_unsafe.html
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
What does bucolic mean?
Aha!
There is still something I know that my brainy college graduate doesn't. I honestly had no idea that could be possible.
"What does bucolic mean?" she asked, and before I answered I did a little dance. You'd think I'd be mortified. All those dollars, four years at a prestigious institution of higher learning. And she has to ask what bucolic means?
But I know that she knows all the things that count in her world. Things I can not even begin to list, much less comprehend. Stuff about proteins and protons and neurons and the nature of natural life. So I can't begrudge her a little word, but I can feel smug for a split second, perhaps for the very last time in my life.
She's graduated from college.
The toddler with chubby thighs (okay,I'm sorry, but they were very cute) who could not go from one room to the next without Betty and Betsy. "Betty and Betsy are here." "Betty and Betsy are coming too." She was a slugger on the Little League team and threw a mean pitch right over the plate in softball. Her basketball shot was so sweet a former pro player told her so. She was always polite to Fergie, the elevator man, as she got lost in the legs of a car full of neighbors who rode with us to the 10th floor and beyond. She once said, "thank you, mommy" at the end of the eucharist at worship and the whole room smiled.
"We go outside NOW." It wasn't a request or a demand, it was simply the way things would go, of course. Somedays, when I was in a hurry and she wasn't, she made me crazy by stepping up on the stoop of every doorway we passed all the way down Dearborn Street, past the bookstore, the pharmacy, the deli, the doctor's office, and Moonraker, the restaurant. Up down up down up down. She knew that sometimes I went to meetings at the "cinnamon office." And we went together on Thursdays to picket the South African Consulate. "Free Mandela! Free Mandela!" She played Barbies and once had her doll winning the Miss America pageant by singing "Here Comes Stephen Biko" for the talent competition.
Kaia and Jenna. The day of the flood. Seventeen inches of rain fell in a matter of hours. The Johnson's basement filled with water. We adopted Jenna for the day and for the few years after, and her family adopted Kaia back. Roller-blading, biking, Girl Scouts, basketball. And the science fair. The girls were back-to-back winners, two years in a row in the local junior college science fair. I wonder if Jenna still has her plaques too? Camp, movies, and lots of just goofing around. Being kids.
All the books. From Teddy Bear's Picnic to Goosebumps and Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and Mr. Popper's Penguins. From those days to this, thousands and thousands of books. Battle of the Books. The big trophy. P.I.Plus and piano recitals. Soccer, so much soccer, World Cup Soccer. The baseball caps, the pink glasses, the "we go swing and slide" all mix together.
It's been one hell of a ride! It was a great time, for me, and I think for her. A growing sense of the world, from Estonia to South Africa to Darwin's workshop, the Galapagos Islands. Issues of fairness and kindness expanded to take on political qualities, of justice and equal rights, human rights, dignity, freedom. From creek walks and measuring alkaline (or something, I have no idea!) in the water to the sophisticated chemistry she does now. From the first plastic toy doctor kit to the real tools she'll take up soon in a hospital ER. She still won't actually be treating the patients but she'll be a lot closer than she was back in the day when Betty and Betsy got plastered with band-aids.
Yep, this little girl who I still picture on the fuzzy carpet learning to roll over walked down a grassy aisle on Saturday looking confident and sassy, proud as all get out, claiming her well-earned college diploma.
People said after her baptism 22 years ago that it was a four-hanky service. I was worried about this. But the tissues stayed in my pocket. I sniffled a bit but was too happy to cry. It was too much fun!
And the setting, well, it was so lovely, idyllic, the green green grass, the canopy of leafy oaks, ivy-covered walls, clear blue sky. Truly, a bucolic setting.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Father Conley and me
The nightmares are back.
And not at a good time.
The tarnished silver tea service is on the kitchen island, surrounded by an engraved crystal bowl, pottery vases, the antique china coffee cups etched in gold and painted by my great aunt, and the hand tooled Estonian leather book I was given by a friend fresh from the far reaches of Kazahkstan -- not by choice, his trip -- in 1984.
Three silver lamps with multiple arms stand like soldiers in chainmail guarding the kitchen table. The room is crowded with antique tables, dining room chairs, an old parking meter, a pile of oversized pillows, and the wood hexagon table I remember my parents buying on a tense Saturday afternoon when I was a child. The kitchen and the hallways nearby are crammed full of everything that could be moved out of the dining room, living room, and family room in order for them to be steam-cleaned yesterday.
I suppose it will be a good idea to put them all back when the carpet dries.
Our two amazingly fantastic daughters are graduating in the next two weeks, one from college, one from high school. The graduation photo collage was due yesterday, AP tests wrap up tomorrow. Prom is Saturday night: the dress ready, shoes ready, accessories ready, hair appointment set up and nails to be done. Kaia has had her last classes and is taking her very last test at this hour. (She was going to study this morning but decided to take out the trash instead.) Now she is off to enjoy Twins games (how is that possible?) and play frisbee with her friends.
There are parties to plan, a big house to clean and make ready for guests. A week from today we drive across South Dakota to St. Paul to the aubergine-painted house for one last college visit and a weekend of awards ceremonies, brunches, commencement and parties. And then a fast trip home to repeat the sequence in honor of Annika's graduation. Announcements, invitations, food orders, slide shows (because I cannot commemorate anything without the requisite slide show), and balloons, party hats (what? no party hats?!) and all of the paraphenalia that is part of the festivity. So far, 178 kids have said "Yes" to the party invitation. A yard to prepare, new badminton racquets to buy, the deck to be repainted, a garden to clean out and flowers to plant, and dog poop to pick up. At least I got the sofa made already.
And on top of all that, Annika is speaking right now to her classmates on a schoolwide podcast about teen suicide prevention in view of the seeming rash of suicides and suicide attempts at her school this year. A heavy burden that she's carried now for weeks, preparing the presentation, being the liaison from the Principal to the students on this concern. She wears it with grace but it sure weighs her down.
So this is not a great time for mom to fall apart. And during the daylight hours, I don't. But these nightmares.....
Today's New York Times (attempt at link above) reports on the American Cardinal who has replaced Ratzinger, now Pope something, as prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Which is to say, top dude in charge of priests and just about everything else. He was Archbishop of Portland and San Francisco prior to this elevation. He's not done a consistent, great job of protecting the faithful.
It's hard to read about clergy sexual abuse. It's hard for anyone to read about clergy sexual abuse. Anyone with something resembling a pre-frontal cortex, a human intelligence can plainly tell that priests sexually molesting boys is despicable. Everyone, that is, except the higher-ups in the church. Go figure. I'm serious. Go, try to figure that out. Figure out what that is about.
Power. Abusing power. Guarding privilege. Holding on. And covering up.
Nobody outside that small privileged elite has any problem understanding the magnitude and the depth of damage done to the personhood, the psyche, the trust, and the faith of a child who is used sexually by a person in power over them. Who is manipulated, twisted, and left to feel guilty -- because the one violated is always the one left feeling the acute guilt. That, I suppose, is because the one who is violated is not a sociopath.
There have been advocates within the church, on behalf of victims. Priests, even some archbishops. One in particular stands out in this article. And it's his plight, or rahter my own, like his albeit with a different twist, that has been giving me the nightmares lately.
The Rev. John P. Conley, a former United States Attorney who became a priest, discovered, literally, the abuse of a flustered young boy in his parish and the senior priest "crawling away." Father Conley also learned that priests had not been briefed about a new state law establishing priests as mandated reporters of child sexual abuse.
"Instead of imposing restrictions on Father Aylward [the perpetrator of the abuse], Archbishop Levada suspended Father Conley...."
Father Conley, more at home with the courts than I, filed a defamation lawsuit against the Archdiocese, arguing that he had been punished and slandered for reporting the abuse, and he eventually won a settlement.
Stunning. The church. In its arrogance, its sheer stupidity, its failure of Christian charity and faithfulness. Stunning. To everybody not sheltered by its marble towers and corporate offices.
I'm still stunned --- though well on the way to recovering! --- that I too was defamed and then set up by the officials who threw me to the mob. If you are still wondering about my story, this one goes a long way toward explaining it. And my nightmares. It's also that time of year.
I'll get through it, I'm getting over it, past it, and growing stronger because of it. But still, ask me how likely it is that I'll be paying a visit to the offices downtown anytime soon.
There is life out here, life beyond there, those well-carpeted and tastefully decorated, and sterile offices, beyond their closeted and fearful failures. This is where the grace is being poured out. This is where mercy and kindness and "the peace of the Lord" is being shared. Freely. Without abuse. Without dissembling. Without terror.
The terrors of the congregation, the official bullshit and, well, I want to call it misconduct, is past. Except in these occasional nightmares. And even those are being resolved.
There is life to choose! Life!
And so it goes. There are 178 hungry mouths to feed!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Do you do windows?
Colorado has long, langorous Springs.
Crocus buds pop in early February, daffodils and grape hyacinth poke up and tempt us to expect their flowers in early March. Jonquils, trillium, phlox poke from behind their rocky perches. Bird songs and earth smells, of living things emerging, flirt with our senses.
Flirt is the word for it, though, because they all come and go. I don't think we've ever had crocuses (crocii) that aren't smothered at some point by snow. Daffodils bloom through it. Birds get swept off their course by our high winds. The signs of springtime tempt and distract us, we sit in the hot sun for morning coffee. We bask in the still warm late afternoon rays.
Last year we welcomed a family of foxes to nest under our deck (did we really have a choice?). They overstayed their welcome, by the way, so we fenced them out this year. Cute little kits romping up and down, on and off the benches and the sofa, chasing around the posts and pouncing from the hot tub cover were cute -- once -- but they pooped all over the deck, they munched on the furniture cushions, and they kind of freaked out the dog. And they stayed until July, for heaven's sake! Enough.
Woodpeakers in the neighborhood, thankfully not on our house, and yellow jackets are not the most welcome signs of spring but they do remind us of change in the works.
And then, after this back and forth, of warm days and wet, sloppy snows, one day enjoying a barbeque, the next day shoveling twelve inches of snow, after all this flirtation, finally, the buds pop! Forsythia, and red bud and apple and plum and pear and every variation known to nature burst out and the fragrance is intoxicating.
This year, we're lucky! The blossoms weren't snowed out or quickly ruined, no late freeze ruined their bloom. And now we have all the fruit trees and red bud and the lilacs have joined the party. And they're everywhere. Everywhere!
I don't remember so many blooming trees when I was growing up here. But now they have become part of the pathways through every neighborhood and along every street. And oh, my. Oh, how wonderful!
This prompts me to do two things. I go way out of my way to drive through the prettiest neighborhoods, down the loveliest streets and past the most gorgeous trees. Life is made for this: to get drunk on the sweetness of blossoms.
The other thing I do, roll down the windows. (And open the house windows.) As I drive around this time of year, as the fragrances permeate the air, I keep the windows down in the car. I do windows.
But this is what I've noticed. Take this morning as a case in point. I had a dozen errands to do, all up and down several main streets and along a number of quieter side streets. Remembering that I'm also on the lookout to drive past the most lovely scenes, there were plenty of fragrant trees and a nice warm breeze to enjoy. And nobody else had their windows rolled down.
We live insular and insulated lives. Especially in suburbia. We keep ourselves to ourselves. I drive around with my iPod plugged in and the volume turned up. I never really have to worry about disturbing other drivers because they're in their cars, completely cut off from me. We pass without being engaged with one another. We pass through the natural world without letting its fresh air touch us.
It's well known that I arrive wind blown wherever I go. It's well known that I do windows.
Do you?
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Congrats, Kaia! You woke up in a classless society!
That's right.
Kaia woke up this morning for the first time in nineteen years in a classless society.
No more PChem, BioChem, Physics. No more required core courses, elective education classes, creative writing, Russian literature. She's done.
Beginning at two and a half, Kaia has been in class all her life. Dance classes, art classes, Pre-School at the New City Y, later at Little Shepherd, then grammar school at Naper School, and the PIP (Gifted and Talented district program) at Mill Street, whose Naperville students continue to be featured on a regular schtick on The David Letterman Show, Science Kids. A move to Colorado and middle school classes at Powell Middle School, and an early graduation from Heritage High School in Littleton.
She's had summer enrichment classes and piano classes/lessons, basketball and soccer classes, and has even taught classes the past three summers through the Breakthrough Collaborative -- a national program with "Students teaching students" in a summer program for gifted middle school students at risk for falling through the cracks due to poverty, recent immigration or families at risk. Her life has been filled with class.
Kaia has always had a lot of class!
Today for the first time since Sunday School 'classes' in Chicago, where she first made the brown paper bag mask covered with cotton balls that turned her into a sheep showing up to receive communion through the sheepish mouth hole not quite attuned to her actual mouth, for the very first time in all these years, she's done with classes.
Kaia woke up today for the first time in a classless society.
No more classes.
Theoretically, no more classes, ever. She could be done forever. There is no application in process, no enrollment forms on her desk. She's done!
Now, theory is not always practice. Just ask the folks who attempted to bring us the first classless society. She is done. But for now.
She does have a plan. And serious intentions to return to class. And she will.
Medical school awaits. But not for a year. She's got a job ---- yes! a 2010 college graduate with a job!!! ---- in the medical field, an interesting, good one. She's going to use her education and her skills and interest to work for a year while she prepares for the MCAT and earns a little money.
She's attended her last class.
At least for now. And she's excited. Amazed. And appropriately proud of herself.
She did it! Yeah, Kaia! Commencement will be Saturday, May 15 at "half after one o'clock on the lawn." There is a Baccalaureate degree waiting, with her name on it.
Kaia, I'd welcome you myself to the classless society but I've got some lined up for this summer, myself.
Enjoy this interlude. You have SO earned it!
(old photos to follow when I get time to scan them in -- don't hold your breath; we're kind of busy at the moment! It's party time!)
Monday, May 3, 2010
Good Bye, Lenin
Dreams die slowly. Illusions even more so.
We want to believe what we want to believe. We want to hold on to functional lies and implausible explanations for as long as possible.
So goes a part of the premise of "Good Bye, Lenin," a German film I only, finally watched last night.
Looking in from outside, or looking back in hindsight, it is impossible not to notice the false foundation upon which East German Socialism was constructed.
And yet, when it is the reality in which you're stuck, the world where you must make your way, find a place, utilize your talents, entrust your idealism, when it is the only place to live, when there are no choices, no apparent or attainable options, you find a way to rationalize, to construct your own reality within the external one. You find a way to make sense of what can't make sense, to understand the inexplicable.
Not unlike growing up in a dysfunctional family.
In fact, we've often observed that all of Eastern Europe and the USSR were just one big crazy collection of dysfunctional families under the umbrella of an uber-family, also nuts from its core. In a world that makes no sense, you must make sense of it for yourself.
That's what I did as a child in a nutso family and that is what millions of citizens within Socialism did their whole lives.
To be sure, some dissented, opted out, became resisters. That community in Poland, which I know best, came together just enough to lead that country beyond State Socialism (or as sometimes, more honestly known, State Capitalism). In East Germany, later in 1989, emboldened by the success of the Solidarity movement and free elections in Poland, thousands eventually took to the streets and by sheer force of will, broke down the Berlin Wall.
Good Bye, Lenin tells the story of one family, one woman who had made her uneasy peace with the system, invested her all in it, captive to its ridiculous premises and most high-minded ideals. This is not a movie review. But what I'd like to suggest is central to the plot.
It is hard to give up even the most unhealthy of illusions. They become us. We wed ourselves to ridiculous strategems as the only means of moving through the world with any kind of success at all. Becoming a low level civil servant or bureaucrat in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, DDR) was one such path of least resistance. One could still feel pride in personal accomplishment, in one's larger contributions to society.
That's how we get stuck. Feeling our way along a narrow path, densely forested on both sides, one set of messages, one way only for viewing what comes next, where we're headed. I personally don't view it so much as stupid, or immmoral, as pathetic. Overflowing with the pathos of limited vision, limited energy, limited opportunities.
Which leads me back once more to an expression of immense respect, admiration, and gratitude for those who saw the forest and the trees and yet again, what lay beyond. The dissidents like Michnik and Kuron in Poland, the clever journalists, the quiet unsung heroes who resisted in place, who refused to "take this hell for their heaven" (as Dante said), the journalists who found ways to tell the truth: for all who insisted on embracing an expansive view.
Today, May 3, is Constitution Day in Poland. Their constitution is almost as old as ours. Granted, they weren't given the sovereignty to exercise its provisions for democratic self-rule, being carved up for over one hundred years by Russia, Germany, and Austria from the late 1700's until 1918. And then again, by the Nazi's during World War II and by the USSR from 1945 until 1989.
Celebrating Constitution Day in Poland must also include paying respects to these more recent courageous and visionary, and expansive, generous-hearted individuals who chose not to respect the reality of their reality during the communist period, who looked beyond themselves and the present moment, who were always drawn by an horizon rather than limited by the known world. Those dissidents who made today's holiday a real celebration again.
To you, to you, I lift my glass today and trust that thousands of others do too. Do you even realize what all you've done?
Changed history.
Yes, I think you know it. Now, drink it in!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
" Workers of the World........
....Forgive Me." ___Karl Marx
So went the joke making the rounds in Poland in the 1980's.
Karl Marx is famously quoted as rallying the "Workers of the world, unite!"
It didn't turn out as he planned. But frankly, it didn't start out as he planned. It never does. And therein lies the problem. Nothing ever goes according to plan.
Scientific socialism depended on things going right. It assumed, yea, it asserted, that history would move as expected.
Oh well.
Today is May Day, International Workers' Day, a holiday that is rarely noted in the U.S. but has been celebrated with great fanfare around the world for eons. The Soviets celebrated with an annual parade in Red Square that featured the latest military weapons and technology. Missiles were mounted on flatbeds, that's what I remember most. So, Happy May Day!
And workers of the world, it really sucks, doesn't it. How many jobs have been lost in the past two years? How many families have lost livelihoods and homes and relationships due to the economic stress caused by greed and stupidity?
Not a very happy workers' day for too many of us.
Marxism fascinated me. It hit all the notes that mattered. Fairness. Justice. Equality.
But it couldn't be imposed. Certainly not in a Leninist-Stalinist manner. There is this pesky little thing called human nature. And it is always the wild card. The variable.
"Saddling a cow" is how Stalin described trying to rule Poland. Frankly, the image seems apt in describing Marxism as imposed Communism all over Eastern Europe. Not a pretty sight.
And just not possible.
But is it possible, could we, might we consider the values lifted up by Marx as we continue to tinker with our own economy?
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